Kimarli Fernando

By Nishel Fernando 
Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) has finalised a 5-year global promotional campaign targeting eight tier one (primary) source markets and six tier two (emerging) markets to reach the government’s objective of generating US$ 10 billion revenue from tourism by 2025.  

“We never had a structured tourism promotion campaign in Sri Lanka under successive governments and we never had a five-year organised plan. However, we have been able to finalise the plan for the global promotional campaign this morning,” Sri Lanka Tourism Chief, Kimarli Fernando announced.

She was speaking at a press briefing yesterday in Colombo organised by Connaissance de Ceylan and Theme Resorts & Spas, in collaboration with Salaun Holidays, a leading tour operator in France to announce the arrival of the biggest French/Belgium Press group to Sri Lanka. 

As per the finalised plan, SLTPB has proposed to appoint a creative agency initially to develop promotional material.

Consequently, SLTPB plans to appoint destination representation companies for key source markets, which include UK, Germany, France, India, China, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Australia and Russia within the year.

In 2021, it is proposed to appoint PR companies for six emerging tourism source markets—Spain, Italy, Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), Japan, South Korea and USA.
“All the promotional activities will happen through these agencies based on the requirements in each market,” a senior Tourism Ministry official told Mirror Business. 

The newly elected SLTPB board chaired by Fernando is scheduled to meet for the first time tomorrow (23) and the board is expected to consider the proposed plan for global promotional campaign for approval. 

After securing SLTPB board approval, Fernando noted that the proposal would be put forward for the approval of Cabinet of Ministers.

“The Cabinet can decide whether to implement the promotional campaign on a staggered basis or not,” she added.

However, she acknowledged that the procurement process would be “painful”noting that four past SLTPB chairpersons struggled with the process during past 4-5 years and ultimately failed to implement the campaign.

However, Fernando was confident that SLTPB would be able to move ahead with the proposed 5-year campaign with full  support from the current government. 

SLTPB currently has a budget of around Rs.4 billion collected through the cess fund, which is growing with tourist arrivals.  

SLTPB officials stressed the main target of the global campaign is to achieve US$ 10 billion in tourism earnings by 2025. 

Sri Lanka ended 2019 with 1,913,702 tourists, achieving the revised arrival target set for the year, displaying considerable recovery from the Easter Sunday attacks in April.