Impossible is nothing

Following is the speech delivered by Deputy Minister of Technology and Research Faizer Mustapha at the SLIM Brand Excellence awards held early this week

What better time than this to discuss your theme, ‘Impossible is Nothing’? We’ve done it! You may ask what I mean by this statement. We fought the ruthless LTTE and defeated them when the world said we can’t.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave the responsibility to the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and they collectively met this challenge head-on.

Mr. President, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am honoured to be with you today. What better example than our President who believes in this theme ‘Impossible is Nothing’. Firstly he believed in himself. He believed in the Defence Secretary, the three forces and the resilience of all Sri Lankans. I’m sure our war success is a good case study for your theme.

As I am speaking to an audience of experts in the area of brand excellence, I thought I should share some thoughts on how Sri Lanka Tourism as a brand was marketed during the final phase of the conflict. I was privileged to be a part of this team …first as Deputy Minister and then later Minister Tourism Promotions. I do not claim to be an expert in the area of marketing, but I do hope to stir-up some thoughts.

We were compelled to safeguard an industry where 100,000 were directly employed and a greater number dependent on the industry. We were promoting tourism during a time where bombs were attempted to be air-dropped at our international airport and bombs were going off at civilian targets.

As you know, to a traveller, safety is one the most important factors when deciding on a destination… accordingly, the media quite correctly asked the question: “Is Sri Lanka safe?” To meet this challenge, all stakeholders including airlines and hotels, formulated a think-tank, as a consistent approach was needed to address this question. The answer decided upon was that terrorism is a global phenomenon and Sri Lanka has its share of it. Drawing a parallel to 9/11 in the US, the Kings Cross bombing in London, the Bali bombing and bombs going off in Egypt.

Ladies and Gentlemen… being forthright alone does not bring in the numbers. Moving our focus away from the traditional markets and looking at countries in our region such as India and new markets like the Middle East and Eastern Europe including Russia, these countries became our key markets, even in good times like today.

The other factor which played a key role in the challenging circumstances was price. There are 194 member-states of the United Nations and many more, from which a tourist can select their destination. Being realistic in our approach, we believed that whilst the conflict was on, we could not have attracted the niche markets or the luxury traveller. We put a strategy in place together with the airlines, hotels and other stakeholders to lure travellers to visit Sri Lanka at break-even prices.

At a time Sri Lanka was being labelled by the international media as a conflict zone and an unsafe destination, we countered these negative vibes by using the most effective marketing tool, ‘word of mouth’. As a result, even though tourist arrivals were not great in their numbers, they were sufficient to sustain the dying industry.

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to leave some thoughts with you… To achieve brand excellence, one has to believe in one’s self and the team one works with. Be forthright with your customer. Tell the customer your strengths and your weaknesses. Get the customer involved in the process of achieving brand excellence. They know what’s best for them. Like we did in the selection of markets for the tourism industry, I urge you to strategically select your target markets before putting in your resources to make the best of it.

You ladies and gentlemen in the audience, who are the decision makers of commerce in Sri Lanka, I want you to be a part of making Sri Lanka the ‘marvel of Asia’. In my book, you are all winners. However, there are only so many who can take the honours tonight.

Let me congratulate all of you in helping Sri Lanka forge ahead during the difficult times the world is facing today. Impossible, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing.