SLTPB plans interim promo campaign in Germany
The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) is planning an interim tourism promotional campaign in Germany with an emphasis on subways and TV advertising, to coincide with the launch of Sri Lanka Tourism’s global promotional campaign at ITB Berlin, next month.
“We are hoping to get several top national TV stations for the campaign. We have also planned a promotional campaign on subways. It’s a very effective way of marketing and it has even more exposure than TV channels in Germany,” newly appointed SLTPB Managing Director Johanne Jayaratne told Mirror Business.
Jayaratne said a suitable marketing agency will be selected to carry out this interim campaign.
Germany is the fourth largest tourist source market for Sri Lanka. In 2018, the number of tourist arrivals from Germany grew 20 percent year-onyear to 156,888 compared to 130,227 arrivals in 2017.
Jayaratne said SLTPB plans to have several soft launches of the planned global promotional campaign in key source markets until it becomes fully operational.
He said since it is a three-year campaign with an estimated cost of Rs 3 billion, he needs to ensure the effectiveness of the campaign rather than rushing it to meet the deadlines.
“I am evaluating the whole campaign to carry out it in a systematic way,” he noted.
SLTPB hopes to open the tenders for marketing agencies to carry out the global campaign next month after securing Cabinet approval. The campaign is expected to go live from September, following the completion of the procurement process.
“While developing our source markets, we are also looking at top tourism markets such as Spain, which doesn’t create much traffic to Sri Lanka at present.
“Once we regularised the informal tourism sector, we need to focus on backpackers as it’s the fastest growing segment. However, we need a balance, ensuring to stay within the capacity while maximising our revenue.
“We have to look at this scientifically and mathematically to identify a good model,” he stressed. (NF)