Tourism promotion: Local firms chip in
View(s):Sri Lanka’s private sector industry, in the absence of a tourism marketing plan to lift tourism in the scarred destination after Easter Sunday attacks, is ploughing its own resources to woo visitors back to the country. On Thursday state officials said the recovery marketing plan had been abandoned.
“Aitken Spence Travels (AST) is the largest destination management company in Sri Lanka and we are spending a lot of money on promoting the destination. Our chain of hotels is also doing its promotions,” said Parakrama Dissanayake, Deputy Chairman of the Aitken Spence Group which controls the AST.
The travel firm is 50 per cent owned by TUI, the world’s largest DMC, which is also doing a lot of promotion. In the 12-month period ending March 2019, Aitken Spence Travels said in an earlier statement that it invested over Rs. 250 million to promote the destination in overseas markets.
Mr. Dissanayake said the government’s tourism recovery promotion should have got off the ground immediately, instead of being delayed. “It’s too late now for the winter promotions which should have been in April to June,” he said adding that their marketing is focused on India and China, the last named in which arrivals have dropped sharply since the April 21 terror attacks.
Tourism authorities had earlier run into problems in launching an emergency PR and marketing campaign in key markets. “We need to look at the campaign anew as there were delays in its launch and now the (2-month) PR campaign is of no use. We are looking at a new marketing campaign which would take three months for an idea to be transformed to reality,” said Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Chairman Kishu Gomes. The problems arose as proper procedures were not followed, other industry officials said.
According to Hiran Cooray, a veteran hotelier, companies like Jetwing were investing their own resources to market the destination while many foreign journalists and travel magazines were complimentary of the destination. “There is a lot of PR taking place now, urging people to visit Sri Lanka,” he said.
Devindre Senaratne, Managing Director at JourneyScapes (Pvt) Ltd, said that his inbound travel company has spent $35,000 on market promotion across many markets and fam tours for agents from Germany, Belgium and Australia in the aftermath of the Easter attacks.
“We are a small to medium level company so our investment is nowhere near what the big DMCs are investing,” he said adding that such promotions should have been done by state tourism agencies.
He pointed out that small companies which represent the bulk of the industry however find it hard to spend money on promotion which is unfortunate and they need state support.
In the meantime, a leading international consultancy had prepared a tourism recovery plan after having discussions with John Keells, Aitken Spence, Jetwing and Hayleys which together account for a sizable percentage of tourist arrivals, basing it on the recovery efforts of how Libya, Turkey, Phuket and Bali emerged within a year of crisis. However that plan was not pursued by the authorities, industry officials said.
| Sri Lanka plans another mega promo, CNN blitz next | |
| By Sunimalee Dias Tourism authorities are set to spend millions of rupees in 12 designated countries to carry out a promotional campaign to boost arrivals to Sri Lanka in addition to an advertising blitz on CNN. Tourism Development Minister John Amaratunga told the Business Times on Friday that the authorities were currently working out on whether to carry out advertising, digital or any other type of campaign. A JWT promotional campaign as part of a recovery plan post the Easter Sunday attacks had been dropped as a result of bureaucratic muddling. Mr. Amaratunga said they had already submitted a Cabinet paper for approval to carry out a CNN advertising blitz. This would be the second time that Sri Lanka Tourism would be engaging in a CNN promotional drive. Moreover, promotions across other media like India Weekly, Al Jazeera, CCTV and BBC were also in the pipeline, he said. The much-awaited JWT campaign that had been on the cards for the past few months since the Easter Sunday attacks on April 21 has been abandoned and will be replaced with a multi-country promotional campaign in 12 mature markets, SLTPB Managing Director Charmarie Maelge told journalists on Thursday. The JWT campaign was a nearly Rs. 1 billion promotion that was expected to get underway by August but had run into problems relating to flaws in the bureaucratic procedures in obtaining the approval for the promotion. These matters were raised by the Attorney General’s department. Ms. Maelge noted that they were currently reviewing the current status in terms of market needs. In this respect, the authorities will be prioritizing based on PR, advertising and appointing DMCs to carry out the required promotional campaigns in the respective markets. She also said that they were hoping to get approval for the television advertising campaign. The industry noted however that though the CNN and Al Jazeera channels may not be the right medium to advertise compared to the regional magazines and newspapers in Europe which would in fact be more effective and cheaper, under the circumstances, this was the best. |