Travel
Promotional campaigns to boost tourism
Focus on developing resorts:
Sanjeevi Jayasuriya
Sri Lanka Tourism is confident that tourist arrivals have crossed the
500,000 mark by November. The exact number could not be given at this
moment as the total arrivals upto November is not yet available.
However, with the high arrival trend that continues for this season the
industry is positive that it will exceed this figure.
The tourism industry boom that the country is currently experiencing
is due to one single achievement. The industry recorded a 43 percent of
increase in tourist arrivals in October with 497,000 tourists. This is a
result of the peaceful environment prevailing in the country, Sri Lanka
Tourism Chairman Dr Nalaka Godahewa told Daily News Business.
The growth in arrivals could be further improved with aggressive
promotional campaigns. We can grow this number significantly with
promotional campaigns. However, Sri Lanka Tourism focusing on readying
the product first, he said.
“We will be ready with hotel accommodation, entertainment activities
and other tourism related facilities and efforts to enhance the existing
facilities are currently under way. The country will be prepared to make
tourists happy customers,” Dr Godahewa said.
The quality of standard at all levels will be improved with the
building of new hotels, upgrading current facilities and infrastructure
development. Sri Lanka will be positioned as a country with better
quality service delivery.
“We should make use of the natural diversity to improve the value
chain. Therefore, next year we are trying to showcase our ability to
deliver quality service for customer satisfaction”, Dr Godahewa said.
There is more work for the country to do such as getting the beaches
clean, enhance sports and recreation activities and introduce more
shopping festivals.
Taking a cue from countries in the region such as Malaysia where
millions of tourists visit, Sri Lanka too can attract the expected 2.5
million by 2016.
However, we need to proceed gradually and build up,” he said.
The country’s main focus is to develop resorts and increasing the
level of facilities. It needs to promote one-stop-shop concept to
facilitate speedy institutional action for tourism related investment.
This process is currently active and investors are encouraged by this
move.
There are more charter flights coming to Sri Lanka from countries
such as China and Scandinavia. The ambassadors are also performing a
major role in promoting the country. The key area that needs attention
is the inland transport facilities. The commencement of air taxi service
is a step in the right direction. This will reduce the travel time and
high spenders could be attracted to this service.
“The nine provinces should have one tourism city each highlighting
its specialty such as gems, fishing and farming. This would attract
different types of tourists. It will also ensure benefits of the tourism
industry to trickle down to the whole society, Dr Godahewa said.
SriLankan Air Taxis fly to GLF
Literary enthusiasts planning to be part of next January’s Galle
Literary Festival 2011, can fly to Galle. Transport to and from the
Galle Literary Festival takes on an excitingly new dimension with
SriLankan Air Taxis ferrying writers and visitors to back for Galle’s
most talked about event.
Now in its fifth successful year, the Galle Literary Festival to be
held from January 26 to 30 has taken top billing both in Sri Lanka’s and
the international literary and cultural calendar, drawing writers and
visitors from all parts of the world. This year also SriLankan Airlines
as the festival carrier will fly in participants from all parts of the
airline’s network covering 49 destinations 31 countries. The majority of
participants from Europe will fly out from London while many others will
fly from Delhi. For a very reasonable fare one can on board a SriLankan
Air Taxi from Colombo to Galle for the day. FlySmiles members can redeem
miles on this sector. They also get a complimentary Day-Pass from
SriLankan Air Taxis to the Galle Literary Festival on the day of their
flight.
Taking off from Colombo, the Air taxi will fly at an altitude of 1500
to 3000 feet above sea level along Sri Lanka’s western coastline. Along
the way one can enjoy Colombo’s fast changing skyline from Moratuwa,
Panadura to the sacred city Kalutara with its famed Bo Tree and Dagoba,
where river meets sea. This time’s festival will attract historians,
poets, award winning writers, and biographers from England, India,
Pakistan, Turkey, Nigeria, the Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, Canada, the
USA, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.
Hambantota chamber delegation visits WTM
Twenty members along with Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce (HDCC)
Director General Azmi Thassim visited the World Travel Market (WTM)
tourism event in London recently.
The delegation that visited WTM |
This was the fifth successive year that an HDCC visited WTM to
maintain awareness of the ‘Deep South’ campaign which was introduced to
the Travel World in 2006. The visit presented an opportunity to meet Sri
Lankan companies and also to promote the Southern Region of Sri Lanka as
a wonderful tourist destination for their clients.
The exposure to the other country pavilions and their products was a
real benefit in enhancing participant knowledge of current trends and
the expectations of today’s international travel and transferring that
knowledge to the tourism stakeholders in the district is a significant
way to improve our own product and its ability to compete with other
destinations.
The intention of HDCC is to use Tourism as a vehicle for the local
community to promote income generating activities, which in turn will
improve the well-being of the local people whilst at the same time
establishing Hambantota as a popular tourist destination.
HDCC is doing its utmost to keep the identity of ‘Deep South’
prominent in the travel world, by taking every opportunity to highlight
the wealth of beauty, culture, history and splendour of the district at
international promotional events such as WTM. |