Top digital tourism promotion committee disbanded
Sri Lanka has failed to make any headway in the country’s first ever Rs. 500 million digital tourism promotion campaign targeting travellers from Europe and Asia although several other countries moved forward in their digital tourism promotions, official sources revealed.
A high powered committee appointed by the Tourism Development Ministry Secretary in May 2017 has not fulfilled its task upto expectations, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) noted at its recent meeting in Colombo.
The CCEM has directed the Tourism Development Ministry Secretary to disband this committee as it has not taken any action to launch the campaign and furthermore for having failed to make use of the useful promotional material left behind by the McKinsey team of experts who worked on this sector during the past few months, a senior official who attended the meeting disclosed.
International consultant McKinsey, appointed as consultants in this regard, was assisting the authorities in the formulation of the Request for Proposals (RFPs) and the contract was to be awarded to the selected agency to handle the digital marketing campaign for Sri Lanka Tourism.
The Tourism Development Ministry Secretary with the assistance of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Unit of the Treasury has now been tasked with formulating RFPs within the next two weeks for digital promotions for tourism.
Further instructions were given to create a post for a CEO for Digital Tourism Promotion and appoint a suitable expert.
Sri Lanka implements some form of digital tourism promotion at present, but it is not enough to attract 2.5 million tourists by the end of this year, the senior official said.
He noted that Sri Lanka plans to attract high-spending, long-staying tourists and a special online promotional campaign apart from digital tourism promotion initiative would be launched targeting Indian and Chinese travellers.
According to Tourism Development Minister John Amaratunga, the 2.5 million tourist arrival target will be missed by around 200,000 to 300,000 tourists while achieving the 2020 target of four million is also not possible.
Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka were slightly up 1.3 per cent to 152,429 in October 2017 from 150,419 during the same month last year while it has been down 2.3 per cent to 145,077 in September 2017 the second dip in three months, Tourism Ministry data showed.