Sri Lanka’s tourism authorities are looking at kicking off the much-awaited digital and nation branding campaign in early February in the key three world regions alongside the traditional markets.
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairman Buddhika Hewawasam speaking with the Sunday Times Business on Thursday said that at the moment they are finalising the creatives and hope to kick off the digital and branding campaign by early February.
Other matters taken into consideration is the need to seal the thematic aspect of the campaign, Mr. Hewawasam said.
He explained that while they have discontinued the tagline “You will come back for more” the authorities will be obtaining the consent of the industry on the nation branding element that needs to be established in this campaign as well.
The SLTDA Chairman also said that they will be taking the campaign to a wider traveller audience by spreading out the campaign into West Asia, Australasia, Russia and the CIS countries.
Sri Lanka wants to now reach out to specific market segments on the basis of sustainability and also female friendly travel with the latter expected to target solo female travellers.
In the meantime, the Sri Lanka Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) met Tourism Deputy Minister Prof. Ruwan Ranasinghe on Monday to discuss about the need to activate the digital campaign.
SLAITO Immediate Past President Nishad Wijetunga told The Sunday Times Business that they had briefed the Deputy Minister on the need to kick off the digital campaign in a bid to achieve the numbers that the authorities are targeting by the end of 2025.
He noted that they received a positive response from Prof. Ranasinghe pertaining to launching of the campaign.
“We clearly told them that in order to reach the target that this has to be launched without delay,” he said.
They had also discussed other matters of concern like airline accessibility, promotion with airlines and promotion with tour operators; infrastructure for tourism sites like Sigiriya and Yala; in addition to providing convenience of issuing online ticketing and train ticketing.
Mr. Wijetunga said they also raised key issues like the illegal businesses carried out using a tourist visa.
