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Tourism reopening: 35 airlines come on board

24 Jan 2021

As Sri Lanka opened its shores for all international travellers from Thursday (21) onwards, 35 airlines have expressed their willingness to operate flights from and to Sri Lanka, according to Minister of Tourism Prasanna Ranatunga.  During a press conference held to mark the reopening of the country for all international travellers, Ranatunga stated that although prior to the pandemic about 80 airlines were operating to and from Sri Lanka, it might take a couple of months to get those airlines back on board.  “Sri Lanka tourism will take about six to seven months to recover,” Ranatunga added.  During the event Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairperson Kimarli Fernando stated that Sri Lanka has reopened two of its airports which are the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) and the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) for international passengers. Meanwhile, during the event, Jetwing Hotels Chairman Hiran Cooray stated that the Government is planning to relax tourism guidelines by April which will boost more travellers into the country.  The country reopened its tourism after about 10 months. The country’s tourism came to a standstill after the closure of BIA in March, following the local outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. Nevertheless, following the lifting of the seven-week lockdown imposed by the Government to control the local spread of the virus, domestic tourism began to pick up, bringing the occupancy rates of hotels to 20% until the recent “second wave” of the virus, which began on 4 October with the detection of the Minuwangoda cluster. In the meantime, Sri Lanka is also preparing its Global Tourism campaign which is expected to kick off this year. The long-awaited global advertising campaign for Sri Lanka Tourism was set to be launched in September last year but faced delays due to Covid-19. The campaign has been in the pipeline for five to seven years under two governments, and has been desperately awaited by the industry, particularly following the Easter Sunday attacks and more recently, the coronavirus outbreak. In planning this campaign, the SLTDA has analysed tourism data from the past five years and segregated the campaign into three categories: Mature markets, Eastern and Middle Eastern markets, and new markets. The “mature markets” category includes all top tourism-generating markets of Sri Lanka such as Germany, the UK, France, India, and China. The campaign is expected to increase arrivals from these countries by 25%. The “Eastern and Middle Eastern markets” category includes countries such as Australia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and other countries in the region, while the “new markets” category includes the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, and Spain.  The SLTDA will appoint destination representation agencies for the mature and Eastern and Middle Eastern market segments. These agencies will conduct digital tourism marketing activities and public relations (PR) campaigns in the Eastern and Middle Eastern markets, while in the mature markets, in addition to this, they will also conduct above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) marketing campaigns. Tourism marketing for new markets will be conducted by PR agencies that would showcase PR activities to attract tourists from those respective markets.  


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