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Tourism promotion targets India

by Tharika Goonathilake

Sri Lanka Tourism will launch a Rs. 200 million promotional campaign in the SAARC region, with a major emphasis on India, Sri Lanka's largest tourism generating market for 2002.

Motivated by last year's overall 397,000 tourist arrivals, of which 64,077 were Indians, Sri Lanka Tourism, is particularly interested in India as major source market, Tourism Minister Gamini Lokuge told the Daily News yesterday.

Indian arrivals which recorded 64,077 for 2002, was up 111.8 percent from the 32,251 in 2001 surpassing Sri Lanka's previous highest tourism generating Western European market.

Tourist traffic from the overall Western European market declined from 190,717 in 2001 to 178,956 last year. According to the Minister, with targets set at generating over 100,000 Indian tourists this year, the Sri Lanka Tourism Board, Sri Lankan Airlines and the industry will launch a major promotional campaign in India to bring in more upmarket tourists.

The massive regional campaign with focus on `India' is subsequent to several promotional launches held in collaboration with SriLankan Airlines in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and India last year to gauge market potential . "We have already requested Track, the Indian based advertising giant representing Sri Lanka Tourism there, to draw up a media campaign to target the Indian tourists given the vast potential in the Indian market," the Minister said. Minister Lokuge who is scheduled to leave for India later today on an invitation from his Indian counterpart, will discuss initiatives on tourism development between the two countries.

Matters pertaining to the proposed Tuticorin-Colombo ferry service procuring more tourists from major Indian markets such as Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, familiarisation tours for the media and one-on- one discussions with potential Indian tour operators are some of the key issues that are to be taken up at the deliberations.

Minister Lokuge said that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to India enabled the operations of flights to Bangalore on a code-sharing basis and was optimistic that similar operations could be developed in the future.

"One of the major constraints in tapping the tourists traffic from India was due to lack of airline seat capacity. We have 31 frequencies to India per week. However, we are yet to meet the full demand for seats. The forthcoming ferry service will be a major catalyst in bringing the Indian traffic," he said.

The Minister also expressed confidence that there will be a significant increase in the arrivals in the upmarket segment, based on the research investigations conducted by the Sri Lanka Tourism Board.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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