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Dry winter for campaign-less tourism

26 Oct 2019

The absence of a consolidated tourism recovery campaign aimed at the winter season has resulted in hotel and tour bookings for the season being lower than anticipated, even accounting for the impact of the Easter Sunday attacks, The Sunday Morning Business learns. Senior tourism industry figures have opined that even after the Easter Sunday attacks, the winter bookings could have been higher if there was a well co-ordinated, single global campaign carried out by tourism authorities. With a view to determine the status of winter bookings into Sri Lanka, we spoke to The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President Sanath Ukwatte and a senior official from the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO). Ukwatte told us that compared to last year’s hotel bookings for the winter season, this year’s bookings have witnessed a 50% drop and the fall is mainly due to a lower number of bookings from European travellers. “Arrivals from Russia and several other countries are getting better now, but arrivals from European countries like the UK and France, and Australia and Canada are lower,” Ukwatte noted. He attributed the drop in bookings from Europe to the long-planned winter campaign which did not take off in time to attract winter bookings. He noted that even though providing offers on hotels and air tickets to Sri Lanka is a commendable move towards attracting tourists, a large-scale tourism campaign was the most appropriate way to market the country among travellers. “A winter campaign would have helped us with the bookings if it was launched on time. People plan their winter holidays weeks in advance. Given the Easter Sunday incidents, anyways there would have been a drop in bookings but without a campaign, it is severe now,” Ukwatte added. Meanwhile, an official from the SLAITO told The Sunday Morning Business, on condition of anonymity, that tour bookings for this year’s winter season have dropped by 20-30% compared to that of last year. He noted that even though small promotional campaigns are being undertaken by private companies, there was a dire need for the launch of the winter campaign. “If the winter campaign was launched on time, tour bookings would have been higher than what it is now,” he added. Speaking further, he noted that Sri Lanka has the potential to recover faster than its current recovery rate if the Government expedites promotional campaigns and other tourism recovery measures. Following the Easter Sunday incidents, the Government revised the target for 2019 tourist arrivals down to 2.1 million arrivals from its initial target of three million. Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka in the first nine months of the year were recorded as 1.37 million, which leaves the country needing to attract 0.73 million more tourists within the end of Q4 to reach the revised target. As things stand, the 0.73 million target for the last three months would be challenging to reach as last year, long before the Easter attacks, the fourth quarter attracted only 0.6 million tourists, 0.13 million less than this quarter’s target. On 11 August, The Sunday Morning Business first reported that the tourism recovery campaign would not be ready in time to attract winter bookings due to the delayed procurement process. The Rs. 415 million, 45-day campaign was to target Sri Lanka’s biggest tourism source markets to counter the negative perception of Sri Lanka created following the Easter Sunday attacks and to position it as a safe and attractive destination. The recovery campaign, first announced within two weeks of the Easter attacks on 21 April, was only submitted for Cabinet approval in late May, along with the long-term global promotional campaign. The approval was received on 28 May for both campaigns. However, the campaign ran into trouble when rival advertising agencies alleged that a proper procurement procedure had not been followed in the awarding of the contract to Wunderman Thompson. The discourse built by these allegations ultimately led the Attorney General’s Department to investigate the matter and conclude that proper procedure had not been followed. It was pointed out that a committee should have been appointed to review the proposal prior to the cabinet paper being submitted and not after, as was the case. The campaign was subsequently abandoned due to the delays caused by these issues.

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