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Tourism has all the time been a key international change earner for Sri Lanka with the trade rising in leaps and bounds following the civil conflict and reaching 2.3 million vacationer arrivals in 2018 – the nation’s greatest yr but.
Nevertheless, tourism has taken a number of hits with the Easter Sunday bombings, COVID-19, and the financial disaster and detrimental international positioning that stemmed from it, leading to Sri Lanka recording solely 720,000 vacationer arrivals in 2022.
With the nation step by step rising from its financial, social and political woes, selling ‘Vacation spot Sri Lanka’ has by no means been extra essential.
“Sri Lanka is an multi functional capsule minus snow,” acknowledged the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Chalaka Gajabahu, sharing how he views his homeland in a current LMDtv interview.
“Nevertheless, most individuals who know Sri Lanka are those that have been right here or know individuals who’ve been right here,” he revealed. And he noticed that statistically, round 35 p.c of travellers are repeat guests, which has been the underlying perception for the nation’s new tag line – ‘You’ll come again for extra.’
Gajabahu defined the hole in consciousness: “While you have a look at our huge markets – like China and sure elements of Europe – some individuals [still] don’t know the place Sri Lanka is. Additionally, lots of people suppose we’ve solely solar and sea, which isn’t the case.”
He famous: “Sri Lanka has not engaged in correct model positioning for the final 15-20 years and even longer. When you have a look at different competing markets – for instance, Unbelievable India, Wonderful Thailand or Malaysia Actually Asia – they’ve by no means modified their model technique.”
Gajabahu cited the instance of India: “A model technique shouldn’t be merely a tag line. When India did the Unbelievable India marketing campaign, there was a 360 diploma planning session behind it they usually by no means modified the technique – they’d a 20 yr plan to construct the model.”
Sri Lanka may even be launching its new marketing campaign in February to advertise the island’s international positioning.
“This new international positioning will probably be a model footprint for the subsequent 10 years or much more,” he stated, including that the nation’s positioning shouldn’t change regardless of modifications in governments, ministers or chairpersons of the bureau.
“With the worldwide marketing campaign, we have to place all our classes, not [only] one,” Gajabahu burdened whereas mentioning that many novelties will probably be added to the nation’s tourism basket.
He defined: “There are various hidden treasures in Sri Lanka. As an illustration, we’ve over 140 shipwrecks from World Struggle II that lots of people don’t learn about.”
“On the identical time, we will probably be focusing on market segments like digital nomads. We’re creating a brand new platform for them to return to Sri Lanka and spend three to 6 months working whereas having fun with a tremendous vacation whether or not it’s on high of a hill, in a camp or at a beachside resort,” he revealed.
Gajabahu elaborated on the focusing on technique: “When we’ve a restricted finances, we have to go for low hanging fruits.”
“Our new international marketing campaign will focus on key markets together with India, China, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Australia, three international locations within the Center East, Scandinavia, Japan and South Korea. In these markets, we’ll spend most of our cash on digital and above the road promoting, and PR driven advertising,” he disclosed.
“This doesn’t imply that we’re not going to focus on international locations like Italy, the Netherlands and the US,” he added, explaining that promotions for these markets will largely be executed by means of influencer advertising, commerce and journey gala’s, and highway reveals in collaboration with the non-public sector.
Together with the worldwide marketing campaign, SLTPB may even be launching a home marketing campaign. Gajabahu defined: “We have to educate our individuals on who we’re as a result of Sri Lankans are 22 million pretty individuals with lovely smiles who’re very hospitable. So we have to remind Sri Lankans that whether or not [they are] white, brown, black or no matter, vacationers are vacationers.”
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