SRI LANKA REPOSITIONS ITS TOURISM

AND ENHANCES FOCUS ON THE INDIAN MARKET

With the announcement of peace initiatives in the island nation, Sri Lanka's tourism industry has undertaken new directions. The key strategy adopted to facilitate effective image and product repositioning for Sri Lanka's tourism is the creation of an integrated concept of "Sri Lanka Tourism". In the past, focus of Sri Lanka's tourism has been on the Ceylon Tourist Board, the National Airline and the travel and tourism private sector with each in most instances, having strategies independent of each other.
With a view to tap the huge Indian market, the Sri Lankan Minister for Tourism and Sports, Lakshman Kiriella launched a trade mart in Mumbai in April, thereby placing his country on the world tourism map. The new shared vision for Sri Lanka Tourism is "To be the foremost tourism destination in Asia" by the end of the decade. As part of the product repositioning the new theme of Sri Lanka Tourism will be "Beyond Beaches; Nature, Culture, Adventure". The platform is to present the diversity and the exotic nature of the fare Sri Lanka offers within a relatively small land area. The bio-diversity and the cultural heritage of Sri Lanka with seven UNESCO world heritage sites offers exciting opportunities to tour operators to look beyond the beach based packaged tour. There are a range of tourism products such as ecotours, village tourism, cultural tours, wilderness tours, diving at exotic coral reefs and for exploring ship wrecks, white water rafting, jungle safaris, trekking, biking, rock climbing, canoeing and herbal spa resorts with Ayurveda treatment, to choose from.

According to Kiriella, "Sri Lanka has a lot to gain from promoting strongly in the Indian market. We need to emphasize on the heritage ties, sporting links such as our common love for Cricket and convince the Indian consumer that Sri Lanka offers good value holidays and a strong meeting venue. What we have not done in the past is to position ourselves as a destination that offers exactly what the Indian visitor is looking for, good hotels at reasonable prices, entertainment, good shopping and a diversity of natural and cultural attractions, all within a relatively small geographical space." During this visit, Kiriella was accompanied by Renton de Alwis, chairman of Sri Lanka Tourist Board and a high level delegation from the island's tourism industry which included P K Mohankumar, area general manager of the three Taj properties in Sri Lanka. The tourism administration's efforts will focus mainly on the family and corporate meeting segments of the market. "Once we have convinced the Indian consumer that Sri Lanka is a safe and exotic destination, we will also work on market segments such as honeymooners, cruising, golf tours and ecotourism", added Kiriella.
Apart from the Taj Group of Hotels, some of the other members of the Sri Lankan delegation were from Walkers Tours, Jetwing Travels, Whittall Boustead (Travel) Ltd., Sri Lankan Airlines, Yathra Travels (Pvt) Ltd., Connaissance de Ceylon Ltd., Jet Asia and Goldi Sands Hotel. The Sri Lankan Tourism is presently represented in India by Trac Representations (India) Pvt. Ltd., a company based in New Delhi. In order to concentrate on tourists from Mumbai which is India's financial capital, Sri Lankan Tourism has plans to open up an office in Mumbai. "We find that Mumbai has a lot of business potential for us. We are therefore contemplating opening our office in Mumbai which may be operative from the Sri Lankan Consulate General at Fort", stated Kiriella. The Sri Lankan Consul General in Mumbai, Ms. Manel De Silva also felt the need to open an office in Mumbai. In 2000, Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals stood at 400,414 with an average duration of stay of 10.2 nights. Earnings from tourism were US$ 252.8 million for the over 4.08 million room nights. Arrivals from India stood at 31,851, indicating potential for growth.