Sri Lanka’s five year global tourism digital promotion gets bids from five companies
Sri Lanka Tourism has reportedly received bids from five parties for three tenders to handle a five-year global promotion on digital platforms in order to attract more tourists from next year.
In February, the Tourism Ministry’s Standing Cabinet-appointed Procurement Committee Chairman called for bid 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 on behalf of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), local media reports stated.
The objective of the proposed integrated global marketing blitz is to promote Sri Lanka as a tourist destination and to achieve the national target of the sector.
“There are three components to be evaluated in this tender — Campaign Management Unit, Creative Agency and Digital and Social Media Marketing. The Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) has made recommendations to the Cabinet-appointed Procurement Committee at present. The proceedings will be finalised within the next couple of months,” SLTPB Managing Director Madubhani Perera has told the Daily FT.
She has said the SLTPB would appoint the agency by early September to kick-off the global promotions by January 2022.
The ‘Campaign Development and Management Unit’ is to serve as the campaign manager to develop and deliver the Global Communication Campaign 2021-2025, in collaboration with Destination Management Companies (DMCs), a creative agency and a digital agency on behalf of SLTPB.
Perera has further stated that the Sri Lankan government had hoped to call for 16 international bids by next month, to select eight destination representative companies (DRC) in key sourcing markets and eight public relations (PR) agencies in secondary markets as part of the five-year global promotion campaign.
According to her, the eight tenders will be floated for DRC in the UK, Germany, France, India, China, Russia, Australia and Gulf Corporation Countries (GCC), whilst the remaining eight tenders will be floated to appoint PR agencies in secondary markets such as Japan, Korea, Spain, Poland, Italy, Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), the US and East European Countries (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry was one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the country when the global Covid 19 pandemic brought about global travel restrictions. However, Sri Lanka is showing signs of recovery with all key economic sectors including the tourism industry returning to operations following the re-opening of the country’s borders earlier this year. Sri Lanka has been listed as a must visit travel destination by several leading travel publications. Also, with the country positioning itself as a business hub in the South Asian region, foreign travellers arriving in the country continues to increase. With tourism authorities starting a promotional campaign for the country’s tourism sector, Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is showing a steady growth. All this has resulted in international hospitality brands expressing interest in entering the country. Given the positive developments in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, foreign businesses/investors could explore business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20210629/Z_1 |