Sri Lanka Golf eyes tourism hole-in-one

By Madushka Balasuriya

There is an underlying sentiment that the state of tourism in Sri Lanka is similar to that of a gifted but lazy child; the latent potential is there for all to see, yet the spectre of unfulfilled promise looms ever larger. 

Year 2016 saw tourist arrivals hit the two million mark for the first time, with the target for 2020 double that. Meanwhile, last year, tourism earnings also had a first when it breached $ 3 billion. While these figures in relation to the country’s troubled past are undoubtedly impressive, the reality of the situation is rather less so. 

As per the Sri Lanka Tourism and Promotion Bureau, at present the average tourist in Sri Lanka spends less than $ 150 per day, in large part due to an influx of budget travellers. While Sri Lanka’s biggest tourist markets are India and China – where there is certainly no shortage of high spending travellers – the cutthroat competition between Asian neighbours means your average high net worth (HNW) traveller finds more value elsewhere. 

Indeed, it is telling that Sri Lanka is only 17th on the list of countries Chinese tourists travel to despite China, alongside India, being Sri Lanka’s top inbound tourist market. On top of this Indian/Chinese travellers to Sri Lanka spend on average four to five nights in the country, whereas British and German travellers tend to spend two to three weeks.

The importance of attracting HNW travellers is patently clear when you compare Sri Lanka to some of its closest neighbours. The Maldives gets less tourists than Sri Lanka but earns more revenue per tourist, while India gets five times more tourists and earns 18 times more in revenue. In contrast, Thailand, which attracts the most amount of tourists, earns the lowest revenue per traveller.

For Sri Lanka the path to success is clear: target HNW travellers, especially from western countries. This is where Sri Lanka Golf enters the fray; while the Sri Lanka Golf Union has long been a proponent of golf as a viable option for the country’s sports-hungry youth – regardless of social background – when it comes to golf tourism it is still the sole purview of the wealthy traveller.

Paradise Island with golf

In a move aimed at attracting HNW travellers to the country, the SLGU recently signed an MOU with British firm PR Smith Marketing to promote and market the brand ‘Sri Lanka Golf (SLG)’. Speaking to the Daily FT at Shangri-La’s Golf Resort & Spa in Hambantota, PR Smith Marketing UK Chairman Paul Smith outlined his firm’s plans for taking SLG global, a key aspect of which will be the total rebranding of the sport when it comes to targeting foreign clientele.

The Sri Lanka Golf Union moniker which was in place drew connotations overseas to “boring” things such as “trade unions”, explained Smith, which was why they decided to go ahead with the more straightforward ‘Sri Lanka Golf’ branding. In addition, the tagline, ‘Journey through Paradise Island with Golf,’ was incorporated to give potential tourists a clearer understanding of what to expect. 

“In terms of marketing, it’s about asking ourselves, ‘how do we want to position the promise?’ It’s basically about something that we can keep, which is Paradise Island, absolutely yes. With golf – we’re not saying it’s world class championship golf, we’re saying it’s ‘with golf’ – so that promise also we can keep,” explained Smith.

“So we’ll be very focused for the first number of years to position it as that, and maybe after about five years the course standards have been raised and we can say ‘Paradise Island with Paradise Golf’ – we’re not making that promise just yet. So the positioning is pretty important and we are able to keep that promise.”

SLGU President Priath Fernando, also speaking to the Daily FT, clarified the new structure stating that the SLGU would firmly remain in control of golf in the country sans the tourism aspect – which will be overlooked by PRSM UK – with the brand Sri Lanka Golf coming under the SLGU banner.

“In November 2016 we had a strategic planning session and at that point we identified an area which we had not been addressing and that is golf tourism. We felt that SLGU would be an ideal window to attract golf tourism. Rather than each individual golf operator try and advertise their respective courses, we are in a better position to act as a credible window for golfing tourists,” he said.

“This will be – apart from what the SLGU does, in terms of running national tournaments, selecting national players, developing junior golf, now we’re looking at developing golf in schools, training more trainers – the golf tourism part we’re outsourcing.”

In a nutshell, the SLGU will play a key role in putting together special packages for tourists to come and play at various courses in Sri Lanka, while at the same time staying at some of the country’s most luxurious hotels. Sri Lanka Golf will in essence act as a shop window to what the country has to offer.

The shrewd rebranding strategy shows that the SLGU aren’t fooling themselves; Sri Lanka has some of the most beautiful and scenic courses in the region, if not the world, but they are still a long way short of being considered world class. Fernando admits that while Sri Lankan golf courses still require “a lot more work” to achieve this goal, the country is nevertheless ideally placed to offer golf tourists a truly unique experience.

“For a golfer who comes to Sri Lanka, it’s easy to have fabulous experiences because each of our golf courses are absolutely unique and varied in their own way. You take Colombo, where you find a rail track going through a golf course. You take Nuwara Eliya, you’re suddenly 6,000 feet above sea level in the cool climbs among the famous tea country. Where can you find that? Next moment you’re here in Hambantota enjoying the sun and the sand and the sea, or you can be up in Victoria enjoying the beautiful mountain ranges and waterfalls.”

An easy choice

It is this abundance of natural beauty and resources that made PR Smith’s decision to tie up with the SLGU an easy one. In fact so confident were they in product, that the agreement the firm signed with the SLGU is a performance-based one; something almost unheard of in the industry.

“Generally whenever an external party joins up there is always this notion of someone trying to make use of the other, but here there is zero risk, or zero investment coming from the golf union. It’s PR Smith Marketing that will be making the investment and the only way we can earn a return is out of performance, so it’s performance-based. There’s no fee up front. That’s a unique model that others should follow in other industries,” explained PR Smith Marketing UK Director Michael Ranasinghe.

When asked if this was something his firm had done in the past, Smith quipped that he was “dealing with very persuasive people”. But evidently what was even more persuasive was the product itself.

“My other clients pay upfront. I don’t do this – period. It’s just a great product, great people, and when Michael invited me here in 2015 I was very taken by the beauty of the island but the beauty of the people as well.

“I’ve worked in a lot of industries, and when the invitation came to work with the SLGU it needed some consideration, because a lot of invitations and offers come onto my desk – most of them, 99%, go in the bin – but when this came… about 30 seconds later I said yes.

“Sometimes you see something that can be marketed very easily, sometimes you see things that are so complex that it’d be very difficult; this is relatively simple.”

Credibility before visibility 

As such Smith revealed to the Daily FT that marketing for SLG will take place over two phases, the first being that of “developing credibility”. This, he said, was expected to be completed towards the end of 2018.

“We’ve done some preliminary research, but now the real work starts. In the credibility phase there’s more statistical analysis of the low-hanging fruit - that would be the upmarket golfer - so we’ll do a fair bit of work on that. Where are the ones that are going to bite your hands off to get the Sri Lankan dream golf package? Find out who they are, where they are and how we get to them. 

“Whilst we are doing the research we’ll be moving to develop the collateral, which would be the website, possibly an app, whatever else – social media platforms, and maybe some paper adverts. We’ll need to get more endorsements of celebrities – we’ll be asking everybody to track down any celebrities that are coming here - you know get the photographs, the cuts, the quotes.”

The second phase will be “raising visibility” of the brand. Smith says this will mainly be achieved through various digital and traditional marketing strategies. 

“Currently there is no Sri Lankan presence in the world map of golf, so we’ll put Sri Lanka Golf – that brand – on the map. It represents all golf in Sri Lanka. The holidays, the packages, the courses, anything to do with high quality golf in this beautiful island that’s Sri Lanka Golf.”

“We’ll also be developing a website that you’ll be very proud of. SLG we’re going to put it on the map. Not necessarily across every TV station across the world – we’ll be very selective. We’re going to pick. We don’t know yet whether it’s going to be the high end financial HNW individuals in Japan or in Europe. The research is telling us different things at the moment, but we’ll know in a few months’ time.”

Government backing

The marketing push for SLG comes also at an opportune time, according to Smith, as he believes such a venture would have been much harder were it to have been undertaken a decade or so ago.

“If we were together in 2004 it would not be the same, because the other key ingredient in this is the technology. You’re able to reach your customer at a very, very low cost.”

Indeed, along with the creation of a top of the line website, Smith plans to utilise several other digital marketing avenues, as well as selected TV spots abroad, to get the SLG brand out to its intended audience. 

With the MOU signed between PRSM UK and the SLGU also having received backing from Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera, Smith is hopeful that any support the government can give will help push the marketing drive to the next level. One such method would be through pay-per-click advertising, something that Smith describes as a “luxury,” but one which could really “accelerate” the process.

“We could target a single individual – presidents of corporations – if we wanted to, the power is there. In fact in one of my marketing communications books I show an example of targeting a CEO of a company, a single person, while he was on his holidays in the Caribbean – a target ad for that single person landed on his phone – the ad was to persuade him to come and take over a company. 

“That is the sophistication that is available if we have the budget. If not we will start off with our own collateral, our own website and social media platforms.”

Indeed, while Smith acknowledges the advantages of a higher budget, he and his firm are nevertheless working on the strict assumption of zero Government assistance. This is not to discourage outside help, but merely to protect the project from future roadblocks.

“You’re looking at steady growth. If we get extra support it’ll be even better. We’re not dependent on them, we’re going to do this anyway, but we welcome their support.”

Added Ranasinghe: “Now we cut all the red tape, bureaucracy, and the Sports Minister was very supportive, so you need to have a little bit of flexibility, you need to have agility, you need to be nimble in what you do today. So we don’t want to get locked in to bureaucratic red tape. 

“Even if it means a mountain of money, it can completely ruin what our plans are. If they see the viability of it and if they get on board we can show them a return but we are not going leverage on them to do it.”

Fernando too is wary of Government red tape stalling a project, which to him has been a lifetime in the works.

“The project itself has to be viable without support from the ministry. Getting money from the tourist board, and in return having to follow their systems and procedures in spending that money, it’s not going to work,” he said.

“It has been a far off dream but I can now see it turning into reality, with all the different components and parts coming together. It’s not going happen overnight but we’ve started the journey.”