• ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ campaign to bring tourism to life

By Shenal Fernando   Last week saw the introduction of the ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ tourism campaign under the slogan ‘Come on board to support the island of hospitality’. The ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ campaign is a white label tourism marketing and promotional campaign developed and implemented by NKAR Travels & Tours (Pvt) Ltd. Managing Director Nilmin Nanayakkara and the team at NKAR. The campaign aims to ensure that Sri Lanka’s tourism industry engages in a cohesive marketing and promotional strategy over the next four months of 2022 in a bid to bring about a fast and effective recovery of the country’s much-ravaged tourism industry. This campaign was launched on Tuesday (20) at the Ramada Hotel in Colombo. The launching ceremony was attended by Tourism Minister Harin Fernando, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairman Priantha Fernando, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Chairman Chalaka Gajabahu, Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) President Nishad Wijetunga, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President M. Shanthikumar, SriLankan Airlines Head of Marketing Saminda Perera, and almost all major players and stakeholders in the local tourism industry.   What is ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’?   The ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ campaign intends to create a platform to distribute Sri Lankan tourism promotional material to all stakeholders in the tourism industry who may add their own branding and use such content to promote Sri Lanka’s tourism to their respective markets. With the launch of this campaign, it is envisaged to market Sri Lanka tourism cohesively over the next four months of 2022. According to Nanayakkara, the campaign was designed to be a national campaign for all stakeholders in the local industry. Accordingly, once the campaign is launched, it will be handed over to the SLTPB in order to ensure that the entire tourism industry has ownership of the campaign. He further stated that the campaign intended to reach out to the three to four million Sri Lankans domiciled in foreign countries with the aim of promoting Sri Lankan tourism, pointing out that the campaign could easily reach over 500 million people globally during its four-month period if all stakeholders were to join.       Addressing the tourism stakeholders present in the audience, he stated: “This campaign is yours; it belongs to you. Please take it over, embrace it, and move it along. I call on all influencers, bloggers, and media personnel to support this campaign over the next 16 weeks. Give the maximum publicity to awaken the Sri Lankan community, as it is very important that everyone comes onboard.”       NKAR Travels & Tours Head of Marketing and Campaign Lead Brian Wimalasinghe stated that the intention of the campaign was to ensure that the entire industry was focused on the same goal, which was the quick recovery of Sri Lankan tourism. He explained that the campaign website could serve as the central hub where all promotional material would be uploaded to be used by various industry stakeholders under their own branding. He also noted that the campaign would be supported by three social media pages on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.  Wimalasinghe recommended that the SLTPB include local social media influencers and bloggers in the campaign, as well as foreign content creators brought down to the country by the SLTPB. He further recommended the setting up of a feedback counter at the departure terminal. “We suggest obtaining promotional material through this feedback counter from foreigners leaving the country. Through the promotional material received, we will create white label content which can be uploaded to a centralised hub from where it can be downloaded and used by all tourism stakeholders under their respective branding,” he explained.   Government assures support   Speaking at the launching ceremony, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando enthusiastically praised the campaign and assured that the Government would extend its fullest support to the campaign, declaring that it would be officially launched at the World Travel Market 2022 in London.   “There was a group of cyclists from a foreign cycling federation who expressed their intention to do a programme in Sri Lanka. I told them, ‘why don’t you ride the cycles and stop at small roadside tea and king coconut shops and implement the Sri Lankan Smile campaign during your cycle tour?’ They loved it and expressed their intention to implement it,” he stated. Fernando further stated that going forward, all Tourism Ministry letterheads would include the ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ campaign logo in order to generate viral attention, noting that the campaign would be promoted at roadshows organised in Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi.    He observed that while the Ministry would support the campaign, its success would depend on the participation of the entire tourism industry, and therefore called on the tourism industry to take control of the campaign. SLTPB Chairman Chalaka Gajabahu endorsed this tourism campaign and expressed SLTPB’s full support, sharing that the SLTPB would establish a sub-committee consisting of industry stakeholders to decide how this campaign would be implemented    Gajabahu also stated that he would take up the challenge of including players from other sectors such as telecommunication service providers in the ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ campaign to ensure its success.      Endorsement by private stakeholders Speaking at the event, THASL President M. Shanthikumar expressed the fullest support of the hoteliers’ association in the implementation of this campaign in order to change the perception of Sri Lanka in the eyes of the global community. He also called for the support of all other stakeholders of the local tourism industry: “If we are to attract the desired tourist arrivals to the country, it is my belief that we cannot leave everything for the SLTPB to handle. Sri Lanka’s image has never been this bad. Each of us has a role to play in projecting the right image of the country to the global community. We have routinely talked and given our opinions but nothing has been achieved. Therefore, as stakeholders of a responsible industry, we must now move aggressively to change the current perceptions about the country.” Meanwhile, Jetwing Hotels Chairman Hiran Cooray thanked NKAR Travels & Tours for launching the campaign, describing it as “a wonderful initiative” and calling on all stakeholders to participate in the campaign. He pointed out that Sri Lankan tourism had previously experienced similarly difficult periods during the 30-year war and the Marxist revolutions, claiming that the “resilience, smile, and the ‘never give up’ attitude of Sri Lankans” had allowed the industry to recover and flourish. He, therefore, called on the next generation to step up and lead the way in the recovery of the industry.     Photography competition   As part of the promotional activities envisaged under the campaign, a photography competition was also launched at the event in order to develop promotional content under the ‘Sri Lankan Smile’ theme, which will be used in developing the white label content for the ‘Save the Sri Lankan Smile’ tourism campaign.      The photography competition will be undertaken under three categories and include a category for professional photographers, amateur photographers, and expats, in order to benefit from their reach in foreign countries. According to the contest rules, all entry items should be either photographs or short videos. All entrants should only include material of their own creation which have been shared on their own platforms with the hashtag #savethesrilankansmile in order to be eligible. The winners from each category will be selected by a panel of judges based on the shares and likes received due to the importance of the reach achieved.