Lanka aims high end travellers from US
WASHINGTON: Sri Lankan Ambassador to the United States of America
Bernard Goonatilleke in a bid to promote Sri Lanka as a popular tourist
destination among the Americans convened a meeting of leading travel
agencies in the US on Monday.
The meeting was held at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington, where
travel representatives from Washington, Virginia, New York and Los
Angeles participated.
The meeting was also attended by the Honorary Director of the Ceylon
Tourist Board and representatives of SriLankan Airlines.
Opening the meeting Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke said even though
Sri Lanka tourism suffered a setback due to the tsunami, following the
tourism revival programme 'Bounce Back Sri Lanka', which also received
assistance from the Asian Development Bank, total arrivals in 2005 were
marginally less than the previous year. While 549, 308 tourist arrivals
were recorded in 2005, the expectation is that arrivals in 2006 would
exceed 600,000.
The Ambassador noted that Americans were long-known to have visited
Sri Lanka, including Mark Twain, who in 1896 marveled that Sri Lanka was
"beautiful and sumptuously tropical".
He noted that in 2005 alone over 25,000 U.S. travellers had visited
Sri Lanka, despite hardly any promotion.
The Ambassador said it was time to focus attention on marketing Sri
Lanka to the American traveller, particularly the American high-end
traveller, who had special interests such as diving, surfing, bird
watching, trekking, hot air ballooning, white water rafting and
eco-tourism.
While acknowledging that the recent escalation of violence in the
North and the East caused some concerns to travellers, he emphasised
that it is important to note that during the entirety of the conflict
foreign tourists have not been targeted or been directly affected,
compared to situations such as in Egypt or Indonesia.
He said this is possibly due to the fact that the LTTE did not wish
to antagonise governments that hosted sizeable Sri Lankan Tamil
Diaspora.
The Ambassador also noted that no country has issued travel
advisories warning their citizens against travelling to Sri Lanka,
although certain countries had advised their citizens to avoid
unnecessary travel to the North and the East.
He emphasised the need for all Sri Lankan agencies and Sri Lanka
connected personnel in the U.S. engaged in travel and tour business to
collaborate in promoting Sri Lanka to the American traveller.
The Honorary Director, Sri Lanka Tourist Board Pushpa Rajini Jagoda,
said the Tourist Board was planning to host an important travel event in
New York this year and also to fly a group of tour operators to Sri
Lanka to provide a first hand experience of the variety of activity and
excellent facilities available to the traveller.
Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society president and travel
consultant Ravi Corea, presented a 'virtual tour' of a possible Sri
Lanka package tour that they intended marketing to the American
traveller.
SriLankan Airlines Senior Vice President North America and Canada,
Ken Campbell, in his remarks, provided an up-date on the quality of
service afforded by the SriLankan Airlines and their commitment to
promote Sri Lanka as a tourist destination.
He said "The American public wasn't travelling to Sri Lanka not
because of the unrest, but because they do not know about what the
country has to offer". He emphasised the need for more aggressive
marketing of Sri Lanka as a product to the high-end American traveller,
particularly through 'special interest' marketing.
During the Q & A session that followed, participants were able to
clarify their concerns regarding the bottlenecks that seem to prevent
greater tourist traffic from the U.S. While it was noted that there were
sufficient connections from Europe and Far East to Sri Lanka, the
absence of ready connections to and from the U.S. was a major impediment
affecting American travellers choosing Sri Lanka as a destination.
Campbell said at present the SriLankan Airlines had a code-sharing
arrangement with Emirates to fly to New York.
They were contemplating flying SriLankan Airlines to North America,
but it was likely that a destination in Canada such as Toronto, from
where a considerable regular ethnic traffic is generated, would get
precedence over American destinations at present. Attention was also
drawn to the fact that in addition to 30 day visa granted on arrival,
Americans can now secure 5 year multiple entry visas to Sri Lanka from
the Embassy.
The need for both the Tourist Board and SriLankan Airlines to
collaborate with the Embassy in getting a cohesive message across to the
American traveller was also emphasised.
Ambassador Goonetilleke said the Embassy was currently engaged in an
exercise to build a network of Sri Lanka related interest groups living
throughout the U.S and was hopeful that this endeavour could also
support carrying the message outside the major cities in the U.S.
The participants noted that this was the first occasion that the Sri
Lanka Embassy had recognised their silent services to Sri Lanka tourist
promotion and sought to meet them as a group.
They expressed appreciation for the initiative and assured that they
would in future seek to more vigorously promote Sri Lanka individually,
as well as a part of their marketing of the Indian Sub Continent. |