Sri Lanka gears for promo push in Germany
Sri Lanka’s tourism promotion bureau has planned out a number of promotional and marketing campaigns in Germany in addition to a host of other strategic plans scheduled for next year.
A German delegation from DRV, the German Travel Association held discussions with the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) authorities in a bid to finalise the promotions and marketing plans scheduled to be held for the German market. DRV has a membership of 4000 tour operators and travel agents.
As part of the promotional drive Sri Lanka will be selecting a PR company from the German market to act as their agents to promote the destination; invest Rs.425 million subject to Cabinet approval for a major promotional campaign; a familiarisation tour for media and a blogger’s visit to attract high net worth tourists in addition to a Rs.100 million television advertising campaign, SLTPB Chairman Kishu Gomes said at a media conference held on Wednesday.
He explained that they hope to have a campaign with German tour operators who will be paid US$10 for each tourist they are able to attract to buy a package to Sri Lanka.
Mr. Gomes also explained that they were working on plans for 2020 for which they would pool in the knowledge they have within their team and would discuss the processes to be carried out.
SLTPB will also be preparing the action plans and submitting it to the industry for their recommendations and then develop the plan for next year, he noted.
DRV President Norbert Andreas Fiebig said that they had been successful in the past in attracting numbers to travel to Sri Lanka and in this respect, he pointed out that their intention is to support that and make Sri Lanka an attractive destination.
Citing the 1340 km of coastline and the historical sights, he indicated that these and Ayurveda were popular attractions for the German market.
More tour operators and travel agents would be asked to engage in the agreement to sell the destination as there is a great interest for the German source market, Mr. Fiebig said.
SLTPB Managing Director Charmarie Maelge noted that during the mid 1980s and 1990s Germany was the number one market for Sri Lanka and believed that the country could reach about 2 million arrivals by the end of the year.
Germany has currently slipped to fourth position with a number of Asian markets overtaking the German arrival figures.