President assures support for tourism

Sri Lanka's tourism industry would receive full support to increase revenue, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said on Friday. In this respect, he had detailed certain plans like streamlining the four boards of the tourism sector. State institutions of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority ( SLTDA), the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau ( SLTPB), the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau ( SLCB) and the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism Hotel Management ( SLITHM) will be streamlined into one.

The President, during a meeting with state officials, had pointed out that the government’s intention was to ensure that the industry achieves the targeted earnings of US$ 10 billion within four years.

He had further explained that in a bid to ensure the industry was assisted they would bring back some of the routes that are source markets for the tourism industry via SriLankan Airlines.

In this respect, the national carrier would be aligned with Sri Lanka’s tourism industry without focusing on simply making profits for the airline alone.

Secretary to the President Dr. P. B. Jayasundera had also made a presentation on the policy and plans of the government and likened the industry’s potential to that of the apparel industry indicating that there is potential to bring in higher revenues.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that staff is to be outsourced to SLTPB to perform duties in rolling out the 5-year plan and the global promotion campaign.

Staff at the state- run tourism promotion body has been an issue as more are required to efficiently carry out some of the work in line with today’s needs.

Since authorities are unable to directly recruit people to the staff of the bureau they would be seeking workers from outside and work through a new organisation identified as a campaign management unit with skilled workers outsourced from private sector companies.

In addition staff would be sought to establish a company in a bid to carry out the work of a research agency required to understand the markets.

Currently the proposed global communication campaign is still in line with previous plans where they would also be looking at appointing a creative agency, a social media company and destination representative companies ( DRCs) in eight major markets including Russia, West Asian region and Australia.

Authorities are hoping to commence the campaign around June, prior to which they would need to appoint the DRCs that would include markets like Switzerland and Austria where German is spoken and Frenchspeaking Benelux countries.