Trouble in tourism: Part 1

We have to offer things that other people do not as distinctively offer. And we do that by showcasing the sheer variety of what you can experience in Sri Lanka – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Our teardrop shaped gem is not adequately understood or appreciated and in fact it has developed the largest chunk of its global PR fame either through its civil war or the impact of the tsunami or now sheer economic collapse. It is high time, people are introduced to and are invited to immerse in its multitude of treasures, bounties and riches

When Sri Lanka’s economic “bungee jump without a bungee” kicked off, it became clear that one of the fastest ways back to economic solvency had to be tourism as it is one of the prime sources of foreign exchange. Sri Lanka is beloved by tourists and at its peak attracted close to 2 million tourists per annum just before the Easter bombing. This was the period when Lonely Planet had crowned Sri Lanka as the “the World’s Favorite Destination”. 

After the tragic events of the Easter bombing, through herculean efforts and concerted focus by all stakeholders, Sri Lanka was able to rally and reignite interest and so by January 2020, the numbers were almost back to the pre-Easter bombing peaks; a remarkable turn-around!

On the other hand, we must keep some balance. That peak 2 million is less inspiring, when we realise that in the same period Thailand had 39 million tourists per annum and Malaysia close to 26 million. So, we are far from saturated. 

We’ve also historically (from my earlier stint in Sri Lanka in the 90s to now) loathed to look at how much spend per tourist we get. We tend to swoon when there’s a surge in numbers, but we don’t look at the nature of the tourists, the nature of the activities and how much they are spending or how long they’re lingering in each of our destinations.

Now the popular explanation for the collapse of tourism is not without merit that the pandemic essentially hobbled tourism worldwide. However, our recovery plan from COVID was also confused, often unclear, erratic, not fact based, and sometimes outright deranged. 

Just taking a comparison point I’ve often used, Morocco in 2021, they had half of their normal tourist numbers which meant they had “only” 6 million tourists that year! Sri Lanka had roughly 200,000! We are a nation of 21 million and they of 38 million. So, even adjusting for size, there is a gaping chasm of what was possible.

Sri Lanka by comparison this year to date by July, managed approximately 458,670 tourists with a shockingly low spend of about $ 550 per tourist. So, this is ecolodge/backpacker territory by and large. No disdain to those and they are very welcome. Sri Lankans cherish them being here and they add to the diversity and interest of the traveller base. But we certainly will not restore the country to solvency or achieve our tourism potential by primarily specialising in that sector. 

Again, coming to Morocco, ahead of their season which tends to be in the fall to end of year; their year-to-date numbers around the same time in 2022, were 5 million tourists! The average spend was roughly three to four times what we have here in Sri Lanka. They are currently forecasting tourism earnings of close to $ 6 billion for the year. 

Again, we’re not saying that Morocco is an exact parallel or a tourism paragon. Nevertheless, they are not a first world country and they have mined their tourism treasures and created itineraries and experiences, communication and outreach that positions their country in its most attractive light. 

Despite Sri Lanka’s magnetic allure, it has not defined its riches with nearly the same level of clarity or specificity. So much so that living in New York for the last 17 years when I would mention my beloved second home, people would say “oh isn’t that a part of India?” 

So, our teardrop shaped gem is not adequately understood or appreciated and in fact it has developed the largest chunk of its global PR fame either through its civil war or the impact of the tsunami or now sheer economic collapse. It is high time, people are introduced to and are invited to immerse in its multitude of treasures, bounties and riches.

At a time when the local Aragalaya protest movements were restoring some of our faith in the human spirit, as this largely peaceful surge of populism and outrage in response to the epic bungling and mismanagement and shabby political leadership that had brought Sri Lanka to literal ruin was all around us, defining the zeitgeist, we thought this was exactly the perfect time to launch a conference on tourism. 

My company which is a leadership development consultancy has no standing to call a conference on tourism any more than anybody else. Except that I’ve consulted for the tourism industry very widely for over three decades, from Singapore Airlines to Changi Airport to Emirates Airlines to KLM to Raffles Hotels and Resorts, to the Ritz Carlton to Hilton International to The Four Seasons and many others. 

Moreover, beyond that experience, having lived in Sri Lanka on and off during the ’90s and then over the last years (during and after the pandemic), in between we were clocking roughly 250 days a year on the road, living out of hotels, in different countries delivering for various clients. 

So we had a first-hand, visceral exposure to how tourism and foreign travel is handled in countries ranging from South America to China. Armed with some of these benchmarks and with some of these perspectives and a multitude of treasured relationships here in Sri Lanka, we decided to canvas friends and well-wishers and we were surprised and heartened by the enthusiasm there was for this project. 

We were able to invite members of the Government, representing Immigration, Sri Lanka Tourist Development Authority, Sri Lanka Tourist Promotional Bureau, leading hoteliers like Cinnamon, Jetwing, Mt. Lavinia Hotel, Connaissance De Ceylan Ltd., leading companies like Browns, Maliban, IDEAL, Hatton National Bank, Commercial Bank, DFCC Bank, Advocata, etc., as well as lecturers, professors, bloggers, expatriates alike. 

It was a marvellous brew of people who would never usually sit in a room and talk on this topic together. Usually, such conversations happen in cliques and people repeat well-rehearsed talking points. We had past tourism leaders who had piloted Sri Lanka through the post-Easter bombing period as well as those who currently are seeking to pilot Sri Lanka through the current crisis. 

And they were all assembled in roundtables and presented with various stimuli and asked to come up with solutions. It was exhilarating and clearly, to them, energising and inspiring to share and receive this calibre and range of direct feedback from such a mosaic of views and perspectives. 

Various planks

We presented the audience with a few “planks” because we didn’t want just a blank canvas on which the same old paradigms would be poured out.

The first plank

Our first perspective was that this would be a wonderful opportunity if otherwise budget strapped companies could take their CSR budgets which they all still have, marketing budgets which they all still have, and this year deploy them to the cause of improving the tourism experience. 

Very practically we invited them to each adopt within the nine provinces, a tourist site or, city or, location and put something from their CSR allocation towards improving the travel experience. 

It could be something as simple as improving restrooms, it could be supporting a local entrepreneur who runs a guesthouse or tea shop or restaurant, it could be by upskilling guides, it could be by building a visitor centre, it could be by overseeing hygiene, improving signage. Anything … 

And we invited them to engage in discussions with provincial leaders to find out what would make the greatest impact, and then to proactively make it happen. No one would have to do a huge amount, because any company could ally with other companies to provide a decisive impact. 

So, the first plank was aiming to see if we could get everybody in Sri Lanka, all the corporates, to make the coming 12 months: The year for enhancing the traveller experience.

And we could surely justify the use of CSR, because this would be enriching local communities by helping them to progress, helping them to earn a living, helping them to bring in the much-needed foreign exchange. And surely, we could therefore explain to local communities that the tourists far from being a threat would be their salvation.  

And that spirit certainly is not hard to inject into Sri Lankans, as we saw when the Australians came to Galle to play their Test matches and they were met by waves of appreciation and welcome and love by Sri Lankans, who blessed them for continuing with the tour and not having been put off by the misguided advisories that distorted the realities on the ground. 

So, this was the first plank and we still think it’s a fantastic idea as there are no real barriers to it, other than intention, will and follow through. The “execution trinity” as they are sometimes called. 

You look for projects that are high in doability and high in impact and you make a start. So, we have to pave a road and you don’t have the funds to pave all the roads … well pave the portion leading up to the tourist site and then move on from there. 

Or take a town like Nuwara Eliya, which should be a testimonial to colonial charm and provide vistas to a graceful past, and instead, is thronged with congested dirty streets. 

And you could take one of those streets and multiple stakeholders could converge and help the people who operate there have more viable, attractive, interesting businesses, by improving infrastructure, signage, services, concepts, so that it becomes that much more of a tourist showcase. 

When attention was paid to Victoria Park (which was a once derelict park in the middle of town), it flourished. And now when we recently took expatriate friends, they were positively gushing. These discerning Brits said, “This is stunningly Sri Lankan and yet also transported us to England and its gardens.” 

So, everyone do something, liberate an energy where everyone improves an aspect of the travel experience, enriches those communities, enhances opportunities for Sri Lanka to be experienced in its best light and expands the range of those locations that are nurtured and nourished in this way so “moments of truth”, all the travel “perception points” broadcast their appeal.

The second plank

Our second plank had to do with service standards. It is a common misunderstanding that all we have to do is communicate better and then people will land here in droves, ravished and overwhelmed. Well, they will be ravished and overwhelmed; but that’s not by service it is by Sri Lankan hospitality. 

And we must make a distinction between hospitality and service. Hospitality is native warmth, it is the desire to serve, it is the willingness to care for people and nobody does that better than Sri Lankans. In fact, in the aftermath of the tsunami, even during the current war provoked meltdown with people who were stranded such as the Ukrainians and Russians who couldn’t get funds, Sri Lankans who were worse off than they were, themselves utterly bereft, fed them and looked after them, made sure they had a place to stay, saw them off safely. Words fail in describing the natural flow of that sentiment. 

So yes, people make allowances for bad service because of the overwhelming warmth they encounter. But that’s not a solution. There are other warm places in the world and finally to distinguish and differentiate ourselves, we also have to deliver service excellence. 

Service excellence is the hard deliverables. So, if you come into a coffee shop and place an order, and it takes 15 minutes for them to put together a cappuccino … even if it is a beautiful cappuccino lovingly brewed, then it is not a quick rest stop that you are actually taking, then you are taking a different kind of interlude. And you “can” make that successful, again if positioned differently.

If you walk into a bathroom in the airport and you find that there is no toilet paper (a common experience), then you have completely failed in terms of service deliverables. I wrote in an earlier article that Lee Kwan Yu in the earlier days of building up Singapore, demanded weekly updates on the hygiene of the Changi Airport bathrooms delivered to his office. He would actively review the results. 

One wonders if any of our lofty leaders have ever deigned to look at anything that simple or straightforward. And so, the second plank has to do with introducing something inspired by my extensive work with the Ritz Carlton called the “Gold Standards”. The Gold Standards were the Ritz Carlton nomenclature for de-constructing and defining service, so that it became a common language. 

Every Ritz Carlton around the world each day did a “line up”; they were reminded of the motto “We are Ladies and Gentlemen, serving Ladies and Gentlemen,” the credo, the commitment to service and at least one or two of “the Basics”. The actual service deliverables were reviewed each day and then practiced. 

We have drafted for Sri Lanka the Gold standards of Service, inspired by the Ritz Carlton, but completely unique to Sri Lanka. They are copyrighted by us and are offered in love to Sri Lanka for Sri Lanka. They are not derivative, and the idea here is that we will inculcate these Gold Standards as living commitments to all the major hospitality providers. And they would be audited on an annual basis.

We hope those visionary service leaders, those dedicated to Sri Lanka prospering on the basis of remarkable service alongside incomparable warmth, would proudly and lovingly aspire to maintain that qualification. 

So like a Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award in its time, or a Relais & Chateaux designation, anywhere you went in Sri Lanka; whether it be a jewellery store, a spice market, a tea house, a place to get a foot massage, fruit sellers in time … you would see a sign that would proclaim “Proudly a part of Sri Lanka’s Gold Standards of Service.” 

The Gold Standards as we presented them, met with extraordinary enthusiasm by the assemblage of the conference, all of whom said that this should become the new “currency of service.” They all said that this should eventually reach tuk-tuk drivers, though some of the leading hoteliers who were there said, that they should be the ones who start, their internal trainers should become certified, their trainers could take it out into the country. 

We were advised by those present to make sure it did not become warehoused under existing certification but retained its independence. Otherwise, it would not be treated as being of independent value and having international applicability. 

The best quality assessments have value because they represent an international standard. We were heartened to hear how excited people were by this second plank. 

It basically enshrines “the Three Steps of Service.” This is first a sincere enthusiastic welcome, then deeply understanding and delivering on both your expectations and your aspirations – some of which you may not even have thought about initially or expressed. And then, to cap it all, a warm farewell ensuring that everything was fulfilled, anchored in a relationship now cultivated that makes you want to come back and become an enduring friend of the establishment and hopefully the country itself. 

The third plank

The third plank we presented during the conference had to do with how do we then communicate all this? And there was a lot of discussion about whether we should or should not go through the Sri Lankan High Commissions. There was a lot of cynicism that our High Commissions do not do a particularly good job in representing Sri Lanka and I thought this was beside the point. 

They are a national asset they are paid for by Sri Lankans. They are the House of Sri Lanka in each of those locations and whether it is the bureaucrats who operate them we tap or the diaspora who use them as the staging post is secondary. 

That debate can happen, but the key is that the communication cannot be sculpted by them, we must craft it and have it delivered in the same way, perhaps at the same time, everywhere. 

An essential message of Sri Lanka coming together to improve the tourism experience, for the Gold Standards to come alive bringing both Sri Lanka’s unmatchable hospitality now refined and re-enforced by world-class service standards; plus supporting this resplendent isle as it aims to recover economically. If that message could be crafted and sculpted and given to be delivered in exactly the same way by everybody, perhaps even at exactly the same time world-wide; we felt and feel that the whole world would be buzzing with Lanka, synchronised. 

Now it doesn’t only have to be traditional presentations, this could also be by outreach to bloggers and social media, to travel agents and to 

other influencers.

But we must refine the message, the bull’s eye. As I write, there is a strong case to be made for getting a UK PR company commissioned for example, to “treat” the UK press to a more multi-faceted outreach. Despite advisories, the UK has led the pack in tourism arrivals over the summer. Let us lace their reading public with a message that illuminates the appeal of visiting Lanka, sets the record straight, eases any concerns and paves the way.

We are currently resource constrained, but hiring such expertise is relatively doable if the hospitality sector chips in, with some Government backing. The ROI would be tremendous ahead of the winter booking season, and such pieces would travel and spark similar attention throughout the English-speaking world, and even stir positive attention on the continent. The idea seems compelling to all who hear it, but it awaits kindling, ignition, proactive will. Why not now?

The fourth plank 

We addressed the need to bring together the various things Sri Lanka offers into niche offerings. Commodity travel is a dead end. People would otherwise just be arguing about where they can get a cheaper hotel room and there will always be a cheaper hotel room, maybe a better quality one in countries where there are more resources, because that economy is relatively more developed compared to say other nearby Asian locales. 

So, we have to offer things that other people do not as distinctively offer. And we do that by showcasing the sheer variety of what you can experience in Sri Lanka. But unfortunately, we have gone the route of “one-night stand” tourism other than a final few days on some stock beach, which seems to be the tail end of most tours. 

We are rushing people so frantically past the very treasures they should be immersing in and we need to shift the paradigm; to let people spend more time doing the things that thrill them. There may be people who want the Grand Tour, who want two or three-weeks of everything from Cultural Triangle to Tea Country to beaches to historical sites to urban centres. 

But for well-heeled travelers, with less time, why could we not offer; “Golfers Sri Lanka” to all of the golfers in Asia to come for a week and hit four major golf courses at Colombo, Hambantota, Victoria, Nuwara Eliya; two days in each location (one day of golfing and one day imbibing other charms) for everybody from the Japanese to the Taiwanese, the Chinese, the Indians, really golf lovers from anywhere?

But again, then we have to improve the quality of service and we certainly have to improve the quality of F&B. 

There are also other offerings from “Rainforests of Sri Lanka” to “Cultural Sri Lanka” to “Ancient Kingdoms of Sri Lanka” to “Food lovers Sri Lanka” to “Romantic Lanka” to “Archaeological Sri Lanka” to “Surfers Sri Lanka” to “Musical and Artistic Sri Lanka” which is why Galle and other places used to have literary festivals and jazz festivals on an ongoing basis, which again could populate the calendar and again seek to attract people in our travel neighbourhood. 

Of course, my new favourite from Paul Topping “Tapophiles”, those who love historic cemeteries, which abound here in Serendib. 

So, we go to niche bloggers, niche travel agents and put Sri Lanka on that type of map. The only route to high end travel beyond product, which of course mattes, is via distinctive experiences that parlay and present that product to stir the imagination and remarkable hospitality which we have, coupled with the service excellence to deliver what we promise.

Tap enthusiasm, and budget becomes secondary.

We had these “planks” and a “bonus” one to follow and then the challenge was and is, how do we make this happen? Watch this space…

(Part 2 follows)

(The writer is the founder and CEO of EPL Global and founder of Sensei Lanka, a global consultant with over 30 years strategic leadership experience and now, since March 2020, a globally recognised COVID researcher and commentator.)