Sri Lanka Tourism drives up promos this year

Sri Lanka tourism authorities are planning for a series of promotional campaigns, road shows and familiarisation tours in addition to the line-up of trade shows in several key markets as the industry hopes to generate increased arrivals this year.

Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Director Marketing Dushan Wickramasuriya told the Business Times that while they will be marketing the country as a key wedding destination and film location for new movies they also hope to generate more traffic from Russia and the Middle East.

He noted that they will be promoting wedding tourism for the Indian market; in fact there is now a trend of first and second generation Australians tying the knot in Sri Lanka.

Another market they will marketing into with a trade familiarisation tour is in Bangladesh scheduled for November this year.

Road shows are planned in the Russian bloc around September, Mr. Wickramasuriya said while at the same time they will ensure that the Sri Lankan missions will be carrying out regular updates on the situation in Sri Lanka for the traditional markets in Europe.

Having already held a successful World Travel Mart (WTM) last year the authorities and industry are planning on participating at the ITB fair in Berlin this year from March 7-9; MITT in Russia in the same month; SATTE and OTM in India this month.

The Arabian Travel Mart (ATM) scheduled for May 1 in Dubai will also provide an opportunity for the tourism authorities to carry out a social media campaign ahead of it in March.

In addition authorities are currently in discussion with the mission in Saudi Arabia to conduct a media tour operating networking session.

As for film tourism the aim is to provide a one stop shop for granting of approvals to ensure Sri Lanka is picked up as a key destination for film locations.

One road show is to be held in St. Petersburg and Moscow and another in Uzbekistan, the SLTPB Director Marketing noted.

Sri Lanka will be taking part at the trade fair FITTOR in Spain in a bid to ensure more travellers; in addition a social media campaign to be carried out in Scandinavia as well.

Alongside some of these events, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando said on the sidelines of a media conference recently that they will be conducting an Investment Forum for which plans are being currently drawn up.

He noted that this will be held alongside the road shows and will be targeting events in West Asia, India and Russia.