SL Tourism starts media, travel influencer campaign for Russia and Ukraine markets

Two groups of elite travel writers and influencers from Russia and Ukraine were invited and facilitated by Sri Lanka Tourism

Targeting on immediate promotional boost within the potential Russian and Ukrainian winter-holiday seekers, Sri Lanka Tourism has organised a massive media and influencer promotion in the months of November/December 2021.

It is planned together with some high-profile media/influencer delegations, with a combined media reach of 12 million audience (in total circulation and subscriptions) covering both countries. 

Considering the current global travel trends, this is expected to be an important strategic move for Sri Lanka tourism for a speedy recover. 

Due to the pandemic concerns, travellers are reluctant to make early bookings in advance and much prefer to make quick travel decisions by analysing the latest travel updates and recommendations. Considering this new normal travel patterns, organising last moment media promotions will strategically position the island as a top of the mind holiday destination during the last moment winter holiday planning for 2021/2022. 

Excluding all CIS countries (where Russians travel mostly for work and to visit their relatives), Turkey is the most popular country for Russians (as well as for Ukrainians) by a significant margin. In January-September 2017, 3.9 million Russian tourists visited the country and almost a million more (4.9 million) in the same period in 2018. 

Besides Turkey, the most popular countries among Russian tourists are: China, Thailand, Spain, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, the UAE and Tunisia. 

Visa, the international payment company, released its Visa Global Travel Intentions Study, which revealed how much money people from different countries spend on a trip. Between 2016 and 2017, Russian travellers spent US $ 1,676 per one trip – more than European travellers, who spend US $ 1,174.  At the same time, 51 percent of the budget is spent before the trip and 49 percent – at the place of destination. 

Seventy percent of Russians use bank cards when they plan their travel trips (www.tourism-review.com). In 2020 alone, over 12 million Russians travel abroad, which is a 45  percent decrease from the year before in 2019 – (approximately 19.8 million in 2019) and 2.1 million tourists visited Turkey. 

These 11 high-prolific travel writers (representing key media publications) and travel influencers (Instagram and YouTube) were invited to Sri Lanka from November 21 to December 8, to increase awareness about the reopening of Destination Sri Lanka for international tourists from October 1.