Travel to become a “costly” affair in future
Globally people will be adverse to travel with most of the initial travel plans being more on moving around to meet friends and relatives amidst concerns of social distancing and new protocols in travelling around.
These issues were brought to the fore in discussing how the future of travel will be once the quarantine period ends and people return to what is to become not the “new normal” but the “next normal” at the webinar hosted by Cinnamon Future of Tourism Virtual Conference held on Monday on the theme “Charting a course for Sri Lanka’s tourism future.”
Purpose driven travel
UNWorld Tourism Organisation (WTO) Representative Secretary General’s Special Advisor Anita Mendiratta addressing the webinar from her location stated that “with all of us being grounded the need to travel” has become more important than ever.
But notably the desire to travel to visit one’s close friends or relatives will initially take priority over leisure travel, she noted.
Though the recovery is likely to happen in the future, Ms. Mendriatta said the future of tourism would take into account not the new normal but “it’s about the next normal.”
People are nervous about travelling, she said adding that a key factor that would be considered when opting to travel out would be the protocols involved in flying into a destination and the protocols upon returning home.
Asian economies lack funding
Sri Lanka needs to employ strategic thought in ascertaining to drive yield and prioritise tourism in the country, Minor Hotels Group CEO Dillip Rajakarier said.
He pointed out that the damage and exposure of the pandemic has been significant and highlighted about the fact that travel and tourism causes much uncertainty.
“It’s going to be a very slow recovery and the measures which we have taken is our team members’ safety,” he said adding that this was their main priority at the group of hotels. The next priority was how to keep the cash and liquidity intact, he said.
In the face of the fact that most countries were trying to come out of the lockdowns mainly due to the fact that this virus would not just only kill the people but also the economy “some economies will open up quicker in view of the liquidity problems as well,” Mr. Rajakarier explained.
In this respect he pointed out that in the wake of these developments in economies they were trying to raise funding before the banks “dry up on their cash.”
Some of the Western nations like Spain, the UK and Sweden were supporting the corporate sector but some of the Asian countries have been very slow because of the challenge they face from an economic perspective, he pointed out.
This is also due to the fact that they don’t have funding for some of the businesses to support them and as a result these governments are trying to get them back on track, he noted. Recovery is likely to be a “very slow” process, he said adding that businesses need to ensure they are prepared for it.
Visit Sri Lanka 2022
Sri Lanka Tourism authorities are looking at increasing its attractiveness for high yielding tourists by looking at a theme of “Visit Sri Lanka 2022”.
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairperson Kimarli Fernando said that they were looking at encouraging visitors to the country based on the theme of “Visit Sri Lanka 2022.”
In this respect, she is currently engaged in trying to support the SME sector as stakeholders of the industry for which the chairperson is said to have contacted the European Union in this regard.
Other measures to be adopted are the multiple entry five year visas for tourists without limiting it for a restricted period of a few months.
She pointed out that as they were observing the recovery rates of other countries it was notable that nations like Russia and Germany were recovering faster.
In addition, authorities are planning on establishing online booking to the various tourist sites around the country in a bid to avoid contact between persons.
Ms. Fernando also appealed to the stakeholders to work together without the cut-throat competition and believed that it would take about a year to get back on track.
In this respect, she noted that Sri Lanka had even in the past achieved only about 200,000 arrivals to the country and as a result this should not be hard to attract post-COVID.