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Much awaited Rs.800mn tourism promotional campaign further delayed

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26 September 2016 12:02 am - 0     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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By Chandeepa Wettasinghe
Despite currently having the best environment to promote tourists into Sri Lanka, the launch of the Rs. 800 million tourism promotions campaign has been postponed again at least till next January, in view of administrative delays experienced in the tender process.


“It may be next January. There is lot of paperwork, and a big process,” Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Ministry Secretary Janaka Sugathadasa told MirrorBusiness recently.
Due to the delay, Sri Lanka may be letting its competitors take advantage of the current terrorism threats driving tourists out of the world’s largest tourism destinations such as France, Turkey and Egypt into alternative locations. 

Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB) and Sri Lanka Tourism Development Agency (SLTDA) Chairman Paddy Withana had said this July the campaign would be launched this month.
He had said that the document for the Expression of Interest (EoI) was complete, and that approval for it, and the formation of the technical committees were pending.


The Rs.800 million campaign is broken down into Rs. 300 million for advertising, Rs. 200 million for digital media, Rs. 200 million for public relations and Rs. 100 million for social media.


This is the last time that a tourism campaign is conducted from funds managed by the SLTPB and SLTDA, since the Treasury will be absorbing the rest of the Rs. 2 billion fund, as well as future proceeds, into the Treasury’s Consolidated Fund, under the 2016 budget. Sugathadasa said that the EoIs for the digital media campaign would be published soon, but the rest would be delayed.
“We’ll be publishing the digital media tender on the newspapers in the coming weeks, but the rest, may be in November,” he said.


An authoritative source in the ministry who wanted to remain anonymous said that there are also delays because no one was willing to become a member of the technical committees.
This is possibly because an identical campaign tender process which had been started last year had been halted last October, with Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Minister John Amaratunga saying that the process of choosing the finalists was corrupt.
However, numerous sources who were close to the tender process, but wanted to remain anonymous, had insisted that the tenders were evaluated properly.


Analysts and industry experts had believed that Sri Lanka’s tourism arrivals would grow at less than 15 percent in 2016, a view which may have been justified given the arrival growth slump in the second quarter to 8 percent and the historic trend of reducing growth over the past few years.
However, for the first 8 months, arrivals grew 16 percent, which official sources admitted was largely due to terrorist threats in main tourism destination markets forcing tourists to seek safer havens.
The growth rate however, is still below the 20.4 percent anticipated by the government, as the winter peak season approaches.


The continuation of the same marketing and promotional strategies that had been practiced for decades, combined with the high base of arrivals recorded after the end of the war had also contributed to the growth rates which declined from 26.7 percent in 2013 to 19.8 percent in 2014 to 17.8 percent in 2015.
It is also questionable as to how the campaign will target different markets, since according to the 2015 Annual Statistics Report of SLTDA, market research into specific countries are outdated.
The last UK market report had been in 1983, and the German market report had been before the fall of the Berlin Wall, on West Germany. 
While there had been two Market Intelligence Reports in 2001 and 2002, even surveys on tourists leaving Sri Lanka had last been conducted in 2014.
In successful tourism destinations, where there is government intervention with state agencies like in Sri Lanka, market research into their main markets are conducted monthly. 

 


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