SLTB in USD 1m tourism promotion campaign in India

SRI LANKA Tourist Board (SLTB) will spend one million US dollars to launch a special marketing campaign in India early next year. The promotion would be for three months.

According to Chairman SLTB Udaya Nanayakkara this has been done to woo more tourists from India. The campaign specifically targets the Indian leisure and the corporate traveller.

Indian Tourist arrivals passed the 105,000 mark last year and the SLTB hopes to increase this to over 120,000 by the end of the year. "It is also important for us to promote inter and intra regional tourism in South Asia," he said.

The marketing campaign includes media publicity, billboards at selected cities, road shows, and publicity slides and films in Indian cinema halls. The SLTB is now looking out for a marketing company to launch this promotion in India.

This is part of the SLTB's US dollar 8 million marketing campaign launched by SLTB soon after the tsunami. SriLankan Airlines invested US $ 4 million for this while SLTB released US 2 million. The Tourism Cluster was to release another US 2 million for this promotion.

The year 2004-05 saw Indian tourism emerging as one of the major sectors for growth of Indian economy, the foreign exchange earnings increased from Rs. 16,429 crore to 21,828 crore up to December.

Similarly in the last year, tourism industry registered a growth rate of 17.3% in foreign tourist arrivals, which has been the highest in last 10 years. Foreign exchange earnings grew at an even higher rate 30.2%.

The Government also took several other initiatives to promote the Indian tourism industry and increased the plan allocation for tourism i.e. from Rs 325 crore in 2003-04 to Rs. 500 crore in 2004-05.

India's tourism industry is thriving due to an increase in foreign tourist arrivals and greater than before travel by Indians to domestic and abroad destinations.

The visitors are pouring in from all over the world: Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia. At the same time, the number of Indians travelling has also increased. Some tourists come from Middle East countries to witness the drenching monsoon rains in India, a phenomenon never seen in desert climates. - (SS)