PR lessons in tourism

For the umpteenth time Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is gearing to attract locals to make up for the shortage of foreign travellers.
Just as the industry was slowly recovering from the effects of the December 2004 tsunami with expectations of a decent winter season, negative publicity over the escalating conflict in the Northeast and the bus bomb attacks in the south is proving again how sensitive this sector is.

Southern hotels are virtually empty and running at way below acceptable accommodation levels while resorts are desperately coming up with attractive packages to woo Sri Lankan families.

Big hotel groups like John Keells and Aitken Spence are eyeing overseas projects as a more viable option than putting their eggs in a ‘virtually’ dead Sri Lankan market. They are nevertheless upgrading their current properties – aiming at a local clientele and when tourism regains its lost glory.

Our tourism feature elsewhere in this section provides some clues as to why tourism is in the doldrums and the struggle by the Tourist Board to bring it back to the heady 1980s when the industry was driving towards 500,000 arrivals and the golden one million thereafter. Yet the negative view on Sri Lanka overseas hasn’t deterred tourists who have visited the country many times over – dubbed ‘repeaters’.

And even more significant is that a ‘war-torn’ Sri Lanka, as international news agencies call it, continues to attract high-spenders and celebrities.

For example the unannounced visit of international music icon Paul Simon and how Ceylon Tea Trails succeeded in winning his confidence despite the international media reportage on the violence in Sri Lanka - exclusively featured in our newspaper - is one such case. The Tea Trails success in pulling off this master coup of hosting Simon and his family for a 10-day holiday which went off without a hitch and was also kept a closely guarded secret in keeping with a privacy requirement from the veteran musician is a lesson indeed for our tourism authorities on how to do PR.

For that matter, high profile foreign writers like Booker Prize winner, Kiran Desai attending this weekend’s much-hyped Galle Literary Festival also shows we have the product but lack the resources or guidance to develop such markets.

It also takes us back to the low profile holidays in southern resorts in Sri Lanka some years back by two other celebrities Paul McCartney (and his daughter) and Sting who, according to all reports, had a wonderful time and were left ‘untouched’ by an unaware media. It was only after they left – like in the case of Simon - that the media was alerted to the presence of a celebrity.

On the other hand despite the industry turbulence, Colombo has had its crop of international stars like Bryan Adams, Kool and the Gang, Englebert Humperdinck, Michael Bolton, Lobo while the evergreen Cliff Richard is due to perform next month. They too haven’t been deterred by negative publicity in the world media – solely relying on their local agent or organiser to explain the situation.

This is an excellent case study for tourism authorities and lessons indeed on how high profile foreigners are holidaying in this country helped by an excellent PR job done by their local organisers with a privacy agreement thrown in.

In general Sri Lanka depends on the mass market; the hop-on-a-plane-for-a- cheap-holiday kind of tourist. Yet given the success in roping in high spenders – those who want luxury, are willing to pay for it but want to be left alone and undisturbed – this is where a huge market lies hitherto untapped. A few Paul Simons’, Stings’ and Paul McCartneys’ put together and their spending power is equivalent to a few hundred, mass-market tourists. Simon for example booked an entire, luxurious bungalow in the hills and flew to the site with his group of 12.

Niche markets are the future and that’s where the authorities appear to have failed a struggling industry. Industry players in the small but exquisite segment of tourism are succeeding – purely on their own efforts of word-of-mouth and Internet marketing – while the big hotels, large resorts are losing out.

Given the ups and downs of Sri Lankan tourism and fears whether the war will worsen this year – which is most likely to happen – the future lies in this tourism and encouraging the ‘repeaters’. Maybe we need to rethink on costly adventures like taking part in the big trade fairs in London and Germany and provide more personalised attention to the high-spending segment – till there is an all-round recovery.

Convincing repeaters and high-spenders that foreign tourists are not targets – as the case is – is not too difficult and lies in their trust in the local organisers as top boutique hotels and bungalow tourism owners have proved time and time again. Who knows there may be another celebrity now holidaying in some part of the country who has requested privacy!

Add a growing trend in eco tourism and an expanding domestic tourism segment and what do we have...fallback options for the industry to survive and then grow when and if peace returns.