State tourism bodies’ heads to roll this week
An undue delay in the appointment of heads of institutions to the respective tourism state bodies has caused concern among the industry that is keenly watching the situation unfold as days are closing in on the long-awaited global promotion campaign set to kick off in Berlin in March this year.
The campaign that has been in the making and which was preceded by a number of other promotions is to take centre stage when the international travel fair International Tourism Borse (ITB) in Berlin takes place in March.
In this respect, the authorities have been working towards obtaining approvals to start the process as this would be the biggest trade promotion carried out since the end of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and which has been delayed umpteen times.
However, the appointments to the boards of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) and the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism Hotel Management (SLITHM) is delayed as authorities want the first two bodies to be headed by one Chairman, it is learnt.
But there is a possibility that the appointments were likely to take place by around next week. This delay comes in the wake of President Maithripala Sirisena insisting that the appointments of heads of state institutions should be vetted by a committee appointed by him prior to them being made.
Tourism and Wildlife Development Minister John Amaratunga said that on Wednesday he had met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe regarding the appointments of the institutions.
But he pointed out that it seemed the PM was not in a hurry to make these appointments and that these would be made in a couple of days’ time.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka is expected to launch its biggest global campaign this year and a promotional drive is to be held in January in Mumbai and Delhi during the country’s participation at the two travel fairs held there.
In addition there would be an increase in attracting more West Asian traffic to the destination for the summer during the country’s participation at the Arabian Travel Mart (ATM) next month.
In the meantime, there has been an increase in the December arrivals by around 23 per cent compared to the previous year and the numbers quoted so far for 2018 total number of visitors to the island were 2.3 million with revenue topping US$3.5 billion.
The industry noted that the rest of the winter was looking good and said that the expected participation of 3000 visitors to the country in May for the International Wildlife Conference was tipped to clear the blues for the sector during the off peak season.