Sri Lanka to position as repeat travel destination
The Morning: The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) aspires in positioning Sri Lanka as a repeat travel destination in the world during the upcoming tourism promotions campaign as a measure to further increase tourist arrivals to the country.
“We don’t want to position ourselves (Sri Lanka) as a bucket list destination. We want them to visit many times as this is their (tourists) favorite holiday destination,” SLTPB Chair Chalaka Gajabahu said.
He made these remarks speaking at a recent press conference held at the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management for the Unveiling of the Sri Lanka Tourism Global Promotional Campaign Roadmap.
He added that the island has, in fact, witnessed 30% of repeated tourists arrivals from Europe and India Thus far.
Accordingly, the said tourism promotional campaign is to continue in three phases: digital campaign, destination position campaign and destination stories with the tagline of “You’ll Come Back for More.”
The target markets for this campaign are the UK, Germany, France, India, China as the major markets to the country are followed by countries such as Australia, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Scandinavian countries and a few countries from the Middle East.
The budget allocated for the first phase of the global campaign implemented during September to December 2023, is Rs. 1.6 billion, while the SLTPB looks forward to revising it as they expect to add more target markets to the campaign. Meanwhile the thematic campaign is to be commenced from January 2024.
According to the statistics of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), over 860,000 tourists’ arrivals have been reported thus far in 2023 while a majority of the tourists have been identified as Indian nationals and a high number of British and Chinese nationals were also recorded entering the island.
The President Ranil Wickremesinghe emphasized during recent discussions that he hopes Sri Lanka would attract 5 million tourists within 2023. “Of which 2.5 million should be high-end tourists. Indian estimates are that Sri Lanka can take up to 10 million tourists, most of them from Asia and the Indian Ocean region,” quoting the President, President Media Division (PMD) said in a statement recently.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country with local authorities continuously carrying out promotional campaigns in key tourist source markets. Sri Lankan tourism authorities are also looking at introducing new concepts to attract foreign travelers to the country with the latest move being to secure repeat travelers. However, the steady growth in tourist arrivals to the country is indicative of the overall growth in the tourism industry. All this has created a host of business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, especially in the leisure and hospitality sectors. The growth and business potential in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry has even attracted the attention of international leisure and hospitality brands. Given the expanding opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, foreign businesses/investors could confidently engage with Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20230905/Z_6 |