Sri Lanka Tourism...
“The advertising campaign will be implemented in line with the Nation Branding Campaign initiated by the government of Sri Lanka thus by choosing leading service providers following the government procurement guidelines.”
Sri Lanka Tourism has also opted to implement a fully-fledged online and digital marketing campaign for year 2016. The campaign will create language specific web sites for all main markets and will promote the destination on focused online and social media platforms identified in each country.
Further, special prominence has been given to attract travel bloggers with high reputation who will act as brand ambassadors generating credibility providing first-hand publicity for Sri Lanka based on experience gathered by visiting the country.
Most of the traditional marketing tools have been outdated with the introduction of web based booking engines, tour planning, e-marketing and other real time services available to frequent travelers online.
Sri Lanka Tourism said the trade familiarization tours and media familiarization tours will continue to be a major component of year 2016 marketing plan. The traditional promotional activities such as participating for travel fairs, conducting roadshows and outdoor promotions will also be carried out in each country.
“However this will be focused and implemented based on proper analysis. For year 2016 SLTPB will participate at 46 travel fairs and road shows in 20 key countries in order to develop the product brand and generate sales by B2B agent interactions.”
As there is an uncertainty of Srilankan Airlines continuing to operate in Europe and several other destinations of choice, Sri Lanka Tourism hopes to enter into strategic partnerships with new and existing airlines connecting the regions capitalizing on the “open skies” policy of the government.
“It is planned to develop strategic partnerships with all existing key airlines and work with new airlines like Austrian Air and Malindo Air and Air China who will have new operations to Sri Lanka. The tourism strategy has allocated budgets for working with airlines and strategic partnerships along with attracting charter flights.”
Positioning Sri Lanka as a venue for international and domestic events will be a key component of the 2016 marketing strategy.
Steps will also be taken to improve the quality of tourism products by investing on the infrastructure developments.
“Tourism information centers will be strengthened for better serving the travellers. Local media campaigns, new product developments, niche segments development, working with Provincial Councils for domestic tourism development are part of the strategy formulated for year 2016.”
During the year 2016 Sri Lanka will host the largest ever French travel agent’s congress SNAV, by attracting 600 travel agents from France to the country. The congress will provide huge exposure for the destination in Europe, especially in French speaking countries.
Sri Lanka Tourism hopes to promote the country as a destination for MICE travel and leisure travelers by proving its capacity to host events of this caliber. Sri Lanka has also won the host country status for PATA 2017 which provide similar exposure to the destination.
Sri Lanka Tourism said the new tourism strategic marketing plan of 2016 would focus on the long term result oriented approach to develop tourism industry in Sri Lanka than serving short term goals.
“Supported by the strong presence of the newly appointed Tourism Advisory Committee, Prime Minister, Board of Directors, Chairman, Tourism Minister and Deputy Minister and the Ministry Secretary, it is aimed at laying the foundation for a far sighted tourism development strategy based on the industry inputs garnered from decades of experience, analyzing research findings and country’s competitive position while being attuned to constant challenges faced by socio-political and cultural environment in the world tourism landscape.”