Tourism authorities to kick off CNN campaign next week

Sri Lanka will finally kick off the long overdue tourism promotional drive next week with the initial US $ 650,000 advertising campaign on CNN following the Cabinet approval at this week’s (May 15) meeting, Tourism and Christian Religious Affairs Minister John Amaratunga told Mirror Business.

Amaratunga presented the Cabinet paper in this regard at last week’s Cabinet meeting. However, the approval was delayed to this week, following the observations made by a few Cabinet members on the campaign.

Speaking to Mirror Business, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Managing Director Sutheash Balasubramaniam said that the advertising campaign would commence on CNN early next week for a period of three months.

Sri Lanka did not carry out any

major promotional campaign promoting its tourism product for the last four years.

Meanwhile, Amaratunga said the US $ 3.5 million worth six-month digital marketing campaign is in the final phase of evaluation by the SLTPB and he’s planning to submit the results of the evaluation to the Cabinet in two weeks, seeking the approval to award the contract to the marketing agencies.

Balasubramaniam said the digital marketing campaign is expected to be fully ready to be launched within a month’s time.

The government decided to launch an interim advertising campaign on CNN due to the delay in launching the proposed digital marketing campaign and a global promotional campaign.

The CNN campaign received the Cabinet approval earlier this year though without the approval from the SLTPB director board.

The SLTPB board members representing the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) and the Hotels’ Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) had objected the CNN campaign while insisting that the government should fast-track the digital marketing campaign as they were of the opinion that the CNN campaign was less impactful.

Following the objections from the industry, Amaratunga decided to get the SLTPB board approval and present a fresh Cabinet paper.