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Tuesday, 2 January 2018 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Charumini de Silva
The long-delayed critical digital promotional campaign of Sri Lanka Tourism will take off next month followed by a global advertising drive in May, to boost sagging arrival numbers.
SLTPB Chairman Udaya Nanayakkara told the Daily FT that they were in the process of kicking off the six-month digital promotional campaign covering five of Sri Lanka’s prime markets of India, China, the UK, Germany and France next month. These markets account for over 50% of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka.
“We have got a timeline by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) and the Cabinet of Ministers. We have to be online by February and we are doing everything possible to reach this timeline,” he added. He said the SLTPB 2018 Budget has already provided $ 3.5 million for this six-month digital promotional campaign with an additional $ 456,000 for creatives, while another $ 40 million was for the three-year global tourism campaign in May targeting eight countries. 
“For the first time in Sri Lanka Tourism, we are working on a very professional, ambitious, well-structured promotional campaign,” he emphasised.
Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka has lost momentum with seven months ending November reporting insignificant growth numbers percentage wise from the previous year including a 2.5% dip in May and 2% in July. Arrivals in the first 11 months of 2017 amounted to 1.87 million, up by only 2.5%. A key reason for depressed performance has been lack of aggressive overseas promotion of destination Sri Lanka whilst partial closure of airport in early 2017 and a dengue epidemic were other factors according to the industry. Nanayakkara said to drive the new global advertising push there will be a dedicated office with new staff with higher remuneration apart from the already existing SLTPB personnel. “All new staff will for this new unit be recruited on a contract basis for two years because the salary structure existing at the SLTPB cannot attract people of the calibre we want to drive this campaign. We are going to outsource this whole exercise to a private management company by calling for a tender.
We will prepare the requirement of the staff calibre and they will hire,” he explained. When asked if the current staff of SLTPB was not competent enough to carry out these campaigns, he responded: “They are already overloaded with work and not all of them are of the same calibre to run a global campaign. My staff will be on a full contract basis and they will also work together with this newly-hired team.”
Following the approval of the CCEM, the Cabinet on 16 December 2017 approved the appointment of an experienced digital marketing professional with a proven track record from the private sector as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), with a maximum total remuneration of Rs. 350,000 per month on a contract basis.
“Within the next two weeks we hope to hire the new CEO to drive this initiative. We have now prepared the criteria for the eligibility of such a person,” he added.
He also noted that soon after the new Committee was appointed, the SLTPB called for tenders and appointed Dentsu Grant Ltd. as the content development agency for short films. The agency has already commenced building the story on eight different tourism offerings of Sri Lanka in 30-second, multilingual short films to be used on all digital platforms in the five countries.
Offering clarification on the Cabinet approval given to deviate from the requirement of submitting bid bonds and performance bonds, Nanayakkara stated that was just to cut short the bidding period up to 30 days to expedite the process, but the procurement process remained the same.
“If a tender is exceeding a certain amount, you have to give them 42 days. Now they have reduced it to 30 days. The requirement of submitting bid bonds and performance bonds is not the industry practice. All these discourage top global companies from applying, so only such factors have been taken off. However, if any money is advanced, the Government procurement rules apply. We are not going to risk the final financial matters. It is totally transparent,” Nanayakkara stressed.
On 1 November 2017, the CCEM disbanded the Tourism Development Ministry Consultants Procurement Committee which worked on the digital promotion campaign and appointed a new committee consisting of Tourism Development and Christian Religious Affairs Ministry Secretary Esala Weerakoon, National Agency for Public-Private Partnership Chairman Thilan Wijesinghe, SLTPB Chairman Udaya Nanayakkara, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairman Kavan Ratnayake, General Treasury Department of Public Finance Additional Director General K.D.R. Olga and business leaders Merrill J. Fernando and Dhammika Perera.
