• Tourism Ministry Secretary discusses upcoming global campaign

  The Ministry of Tourism and the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) are finally planning to launch Sri Lanka’s long-delayed global tourism promotional campaign. The Morning spoke to Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism S. Hettiarachchi on the campaign, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and tourism markets Sri Lanka will focus on. Following are excerpts of the interview.   [caption id="attachment_122144" align="alignright" width="480"] "After the vaccination is completed, most of the tourists will be confident about the country. Maybe after three months of time, we will be able to end the travel bubble and have less strict health guidelines" Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism S. Hettiarachchi[/caption] What is the target market of the planned ‘global promotional campaign’? We are focusing on high-end and business tourists at the moment so that there will be higher spending. The Maldives and India have already started their global campaigns for tourism and we need to start our campaign parallelly. Most of the global travellers are frustrated with the lack of travel opportunities, and we need to go for a global campaign to promote our destination. We already received approval from the Cabinet of Ministers for the global campaign. We hope to spend$ 56 million for promotions over five years. Emerging markets will be our first priority, especially the countries in Eastern Europe like Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. We already have mature markets like Western Europe which includes Britain, Germany, and France; Switzerland; Australia; China; and India. India can be our biggest tourism market, but we haven’t even captured 1% of that market. We are still in discussions with the Indian High Commission to seek approval to start a travel corridor where we hope to get approvals within two weeks. However, the Indian High Commissioner has already granted approval for business, MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions), and wedding tourism. For business purposes, we have arranged a business bubble with the help of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) where they can hold business meetings at Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo.   You have set a tourism revenue target of $ 1.5 billion for 2021. Do you believe this is a realistic target? We were able to archive a $ 4.5 billion tourism revenue in the year 2018. We hope we will be able to archive this target too after July. The reason we are not focusing on traditional markets like the UK is due to the pandemic situation.   What will be the first step of the global promotional campaign? Sri Lanka Tourism has kicked off the search for a reputed, competent agency to handle promotion on digital platforms as well as to attract more visitors despite Covid-19 challenges. As per the finalised plan, SLTPB has proposed to appoint JWT (J. Walter Thompson) as the creative agency to initially develop promotional material, while eMarketingEye will make the digital promotion a reality. There will be a bid for proposals from agencies for a “Digital Marketing Company for Social Media and Other Forms of Online and Digital Marketing” as well as for a “Campaign Development and Management Unit” to facilitate the Global Communication Campaign 2021-2025 of Sri Lanka Tourism. The maximum total contract value over the period of five years for the Digital Marketing Company for Social Media and Other Forms of Online and Digital Marketing will be Rs. 250 million, whilst for the Campaign Development and Management Unit will be Rs. 500 million, and the required funds will be allocated through SLTPB. Cricket and celebrity tourism will also be included in this campaign. We plan to promote our heritage, diversity, beaches, agriculture, and wildlife through the campaign. A pre-bid meeting in this regard will also be held with a nine-member, high-powered steering committee appointed by Minister of Tourism Prasanna Ranatunga for strategic management of Global Promotional Campaign.   Will the travel bubble concept be continued? Well, I don’t think we have to continue the travel bubble forever. After the vaccination is completed, most of the tourists will be confident about the country. Maybe after three months of time, we will be able to end the travel bubble and have less strict health guidelines. We will not argue with the health officials at the moment, who are the experts in the health field. Health officials were flexible with us from the beginning, where they considered loosening the health guidelines for those who travel only for a few days. Within the travel bubble, we have received more than 1,000 tourists within the month of February. We expect to have a boom in the tourism industry after August.   How is the relationship between the Tourism Ministry and Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chair Kimarli Fernando? We don’t have any issues. We might have disagreements, but I think it is a good thing to have disagreements and we see it as a constructive dialogue.   Were you able to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan during his visit to Sri Lanka? Yes. PM Khan highlighted Buddhist heritage sites in Pakistan and stressed the need to build cultural ties and pilgrimage tourism development. Pakistan probably has one of the greatest Buddhist heritages in the world, and they invite people from Sri Lanka to visit them. Pakistan was really keen on the fact that Sri Lanka has been named the safest country in the world to visit and requested assistance from Sri Lanka to develop tourism in Pakistan.   What plans do you have to promote domestic tourism? We are hoping to develop domestic tourism through 50 projects with the help of district co-ordination committees (DCC). This will focus on everything from road development to training people in the hospitality field. Sustainable development will also take place in different locations in the country. We also hope to have tourist development zones handled by the Urban Development Authority (UDA). We have identified five places including Arugam Bay beach, Nuwara Eliya, Ella, Hikkaduwa, and Kalpitiya. We will have a progressive discussion with the public in these locations where we will be able to develop issue-free tourism programmes.