SO Underperforming, SO Sri Lanka
View(s):As Sri Lanka ends the year reeling from the most shameful political fiasco in its post-colonial history, we have shown yet again that we are much more capable of harming ourselves than any external force our politicians constantly blame.
Unfortunately, this is the same with the tourism industry.
While the whole world is trying to promote Sri Lanka as one of the world’s top destinations—from New York Times in 2011 to Lonely Planet this year—the country remains a two million-arrivals destination nearly 10 years after the end of the war.
In contrast, Langkawi, a tiny island off Malaysia gets more than 3.5 million visitors per year, and Cambodia gets over eight million. These destinations have surpassed Sri Lanka despite offering only one-dimensional products: Langkawi has only beaches, and Cambodia has just one attraction—Angkor Wat, which itself depicts the Ramayana, a story that happened in Sri Lanka.
We should be ashamed of how little we have achieved over the last decade, given that Sri Lanka has more to offer as a tourism destination than any of our competitors.
As we close the year, I would like to go more in-depth into my thinking on some inherent factors that contribute to the industry’s chronic underperformance.
Living in the past with an entitlement mentality
Our industry had a sudden end in 1983, at a time when we were on par with Thailand as an Asian destination. At that point, Maldives, Bali, Langkawi, etc. were not major players, and Sri Lanka and Thailand were the top two destinations in this region.
Then for 27 years, we did not grow as an industry for obvious reasons that were beyond the industry’s control. When the war ended, and tourism was again brought to the forefront, the industry was not prepared. It defaulted to what we left behind in 1983 with similar concepts, mostly driven by the same people.
Apart from a few exceptions, the industry seemed to believe that the whole world was waiting to descend on Sri Lanka en masse, and that all we needed to do was build more beach hotels.
Human Capital Gap
A major reason for this sort of blinkered thinking was that there was no proper development of the industry’s human capital during the war. During that time, for the most part, tourism was the last option for employment because the industry was on a shoestring budget. The best brains stayed away.
As a result, it was mostly the leaders from the pre-war era who came to the fore to create the future of Sri Lankan Tourism at the end of the war. While their intentions were no doubt excellent, the issue was that they were mostly an antiquated lot with outdated skills and experience, given the industry needs and the competition around us.
Unfortunately even today, most industry leaders in both the Government and the private sector are mostly such people. If the industry is to succeed, the veterans need to go. It is not anyone’s fault, but the need of the hour.
The tourism industry needs to become dynamic to attract the best. The sooner we get the top brains (instead of focusing on experience) the sooner tourism will become the industry we hope it can be.
Lacking faith in itself
One critical factor impeding this sort of transformation is the almost colonial mindset within the industry. An unfortunate saying amongst some in the industry is that “we need white skin.” Again, this stems from our lack of strong and smart leaders.
There is no gainsaying we need expertise and exposure and for that we certainly need expatriate staff working in the industry, whatever their skin colour. This will also help fill the human capital gap. However, this needs to be done in a strategic way, hand in hand with an overall human capital improvement plan that develops local talent.
When it comes to marketing Sri Lanka, we are almost solely dependent on very young Europeans, who visit on a “Familiarisation Trip” to experience Sri Lanka for a week to 10 days. It is these “Sri Lanka Specialists” who then take the lead in promoting the country within their markets.
It is really sad that Sri Lankans who have grown up in Sri Lanka all their lives, who have studied about its attractions and its history since the age of five or six and have visited these places many times, don’t have much of a say in this process.
If we can’t market Sri Lanka ourselves, we are doomed.
Sub-optimal strategic positioning
Since the end of the war, wishful and emotional thinking has dictated the industry’s trajectory instead of benchmarked strategic analysis. The so-called Tourism Product Development (in reality mainly a zoning exercise) carried around 2012 identified Passikudah, Kalpitiya, and Kuchchavelli as promoted tourism zones in exactly the same way Bentota, Beruwela, Negombo, etc had been promoted in the 1970s. However, we have had very different results.
While “sun, sea, and sand” was the right product in the 1970s given the lack of other regional tourism products, it is not the case today. Investors turned away because the biggest government-sponsored projects were disasters.
It is exactly the same thing with so many destination campaigns that never yield dividends. Even the current campaign, while its intentions seem somewhat more sophisticated at least inasmuch as it tries to cover the diverse product that Sri Lanka is, falls way short of what is needed.
To start with “So Sri Lanka” can easily lead to satire as we have already seen (albeit factors that the industry could not control) and that itself is enough to shelve the campaign. The campaign adopts a cookie cutter approach that assumes that what works in UK will work in Germany or even China. This is not the case.
However, instead of recognising that markets are segmented and that tourism sub-products need to be matched to the outbound tourism potential of these segments, we have one campaign for the whole world.
Another flaw in this process is that we have completely ignored the large potential of emerging regional markets and still depend primarily on Europe (which is mostly seasonal), China and India. Even within these markets, our primary focus is on attracting busloads of package tourists—which is in the lower end of the market—rather than segments with potentially higher yields. A proper strategic analysis of the tourism industry would prevent such blinkered thinking.
To sum up, Sri Lanka is easily a 10 – 15 million tourist destination, but it needs to compete in multiple segments with promotion of different products in different locations.
We need a comprehensive benchmarked and fact-based strategic plan that addresses all the above and plan for 15 million arrivals. We can easily get to that level in 10 years. This will ensure the sustainability of the whole product and equitable distribution of the returns throughout the country and society. Wishful thinking won’t make it happen.
(The writer is the founder of Santani Wellness Resort and Spa, one of the most celebrated new hotels of the world. He was a strategy consultant prior to founding Santani).