Marketing an emerging tourism destination in Asia:Sri Lankan perspective of green tourism

The Secretary General of UNWTO Dr. Taleb Refai, distinguished invitees, presenters, officials, representatives of the media, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed a privilege for me and for my country Sri Lanka to be invited for this high level UNWTO conference to present our perspective of green tourism.

UNWTO Secretary General Dr. Taleb Refai with Dr. Nalaka Godahewa

It is also important to note that until about three years ago Sri Lanka was rarely invited to share its experiences at global tourism conferences of this nature due to the fact the tourism was a stagnant industry in Sri Lanka for nearly than 30 years.

It is due to a very simple reason. For 30 long years the progress of our beautiful country was hindered by an internal conflict orchestrated by one of the most brutal and horrendous terrorist outfits that the world has ever seen: The LTTE.

Fortunately for Sri Lanka and also for the world, this 30-year-long armed conflict ended on 18 May 2009 with the complete annihilation of the LTTE under the enlightened leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Since then the world tourism industry has rediscovered Sri Lanka as a prime tourism destination. That is why today you want to know more about our country and about our sustainable tourism development policies.

I have structured this presentation to address the following:

nThe current global scenario in tourism and the rise of green tourism

nThe sustainable tourism development policy of Sri Lanka

nA few case studies on contributions to green tourism in Sri Lanka

nThe value proposition of Sri Lanka and strategic fit with the green tourism objectives of UNWTO

As you are already aware, world tourist arrivals grew by 4.4% in 2011 to a total of 980 million up from 939 million in 2010. Among the regions which performed well, Asia led with 6.1% growth. Sri Lanka also did well with 32% growth in 2011. We are continuing this good performance in 2012 with 21% growth during the first quarter. We expect to exceed 950,000 tourist arrivals target this year.

Tourism industry

The year 2012 is quite significant to the global tourism industry. UNWTO Secretary General Dr. Taleb Refai mentioned at the inauguration of this conference that global tourist arrivals are expected to exceed one billion this year. That will also be great contribution towards the recovery of many global economies which have gone through financial difficulties.

As you all know the tourism industry now contributes 5% of the world’s GDP. With 235 million jobs worldwide, one out of every 12 persons employed in the world today is engaged in tourism. World tourism generates close to US$ 3 billion a day in overall income and ranks fourth after fuels, chemicals and automotive products.

Tourism is the main source of foreign income for one third of the developing countries. In certain island nations amongst the developing world, contribution of tourism to national GDP is as high as 25%. Tourism is expected to be included as a key discussion item even in the agenda of the next G20 summit of world economic leaders scheduled to be held in Mexico in May 2012.

Amongst the recent global trends green tourism play an important role. The number of travellers seeking green tourism destinations is clearly on the rise. According to UNWTO research, 34% of world travellers today are willing to spend more for a hotel that has a record of being environmental friendly. 50% of tourists are willing to pay more for a hotel which shares the economic benefits with the community. These numbers keep growing with greater awareness on green initiatives across the world.

What is green tourism or sustainable tourism? We can simply define it as responsible travel to natural destinations that preserve the environment and improve the well-being of the local community, thereby ensuring sustainability.

It is in this context the sustainable tourism development policy of Sri Lanka becomes quite appropriate. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has set the country a target of 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016. This means an ambitious goal of growing 400% within five years.

In order to achieve this ambitious target under the guidance of Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa, the country has prepared a five-year tourism development master plan. The Tourism Development Strategy document published by the Ministry of Economic Development has very clearly articulated the sustainable tourism development policy of the country which is built on three main pillars.

nFirstly, making sure that there is absolutely no negative impact on environment in any of our tourism development activities and also to contribute actively towards conservation of natural environment.

nSecondly, to ensure that the economic benefits of the tourism industry are shared with a larger cross section of the society.

nThirdly, to ensure a pleasant experience throughout the stay for each and every tourist so that these tourists will not only repeat their visits but also promote the destination to friends and relatives.

All these policies fall perfectly in line with the sustainability concepts that UNWTO is actively advocating. Just look the UNWTO definition of sustainable tourism: “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impact, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” You can see very clearly the perfect alignment of our sustainability policy with this thought process.

In Sri Lanka, tourism is a 100% private-sector driven industry. The Government has confined its role to planning, policymaking and regulation. Of course we support the development of the industry through development of common infrastructure like roads, ports, airports, energy and water supplies, etc.

Sustainable tourism

The private sector makes the business investments and is responsible for capacity building, innovation, value creation and quality assurance. Sustainable tourism is of course at the core of all these activities and the social, economic and environmental issues are inseparable. Given tourism’s importance to the local and global economy, the sector has a responsibility to take the lead on the path towards sustainable development.

Just to demonstrate how the country is approaching green tourism, let me therefore take a few examples from the private sector. With the limited time available, I cannot talk about too many companies and therefore I am taking only a few case studies from some of the largest group companies.

Take the example of Aitken Spence, one of the largest groups of companies in Sri Lanka involved in tourism. All nine hotels in their group are Earth Check Silver certified for energy and water savings, waste management and community involvement. They are all ISO 14001 certified for environment management.

One of the group hotels has already received ISO 50001 certification. Every hotel has established an energy management system conducts an energy audit periodically. Some of Aitken Spence group hotels can calculate their carbon footprint and are able to state how much CO2 is emitted per guest per day.

Jetwing, another large group in the tourism industry, is a PATA Gold award winner for its corporate environmental program in 2012. They have an ongoing environment conservation project called Jetwing Eternal Earth Project. Through this program they educate the younger generation of country on best practices of environment conservation and minimising global warming.

Most of their hotels invite guests to volunteer to plant a tree when they stay at the hotel. What is interesting is not just the idea of planting a tree but the follow up. The tree is given a number and the information of the progress of the tree is reported in a website that the guest can visit. So year on year the guest can monitor how his or her tree in Sri Lanka is growing. They can one day visit the tree or recommend their friends or relatives who visit Sri Lanka to go and see the trees they planted.

Community development

John Keells is another large group managing two famous hotel brands in Sri Lanka. I would like to touch on their contribution towards community development. They have started out sourcing most of the services originally managed in-house creating more opportunities for entrepreneurship.

For example, recently they discontinued one of largest fleets of cars owned and operated by them and started hiring vehicles from private owners for tourist transportation. Around their new hotels they help upgrading the nearby shops owned small time vendors and encourage their guests to go out and shop. The in-house training facilities are extended to rural youth with no commitment to join the group after training.

There are many other groups of companies such as Serendib Group, Tangerine Group, Taj Group, etc., which have similar initiatives which focus on environment conservation and community development.

I must emphasise that it is not only the group companies which are actively focusing on sustainability. There are a large number of boutique hotels, villas and lodges which have won world attention for best practices in ecotourism. There are many hotels in the country which use renewable energy, recycle waste and cook using biomass generated out of waste. Unfortunately I don’t have enough time to provide you with more case studies.

I would also like to mention here some of the voluntary initiatives from Non-Governmental Organisations, which help implementing our sustainable tourism policy.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce with the support of EU funding has been driving a project called ‘Greening Sri Lanka Hotels’ for several years. The main objective of the proposed action is to enhance the environmental performance of Sri Lankan hotels through the improvement of energy, water and waste management systems and reduce cost of operations and increase market acceptance of Sri Lankan hotels with low carbon footprints.

The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing has come forward to provide training for small-time entrepreneurs such as craftsmen. The idea is to educate them as to how these suppliers can make their products more marketable and also to help developing their marketing skills. We have seen similar initiatives from Sri Lanka Academy of Design and also from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

The alumnus of two key universities Sri Jayewardenepura and Colombo, have volunteered to train the owners of small guest houses, rest houses and the providers of home-stay accommodation units.

We are aggressively promoting the home-stay concept as part of the ‘Divi Neguma’ program of the Ministry of Economic Development where individual households are encouraged to become business units catering to cottage industries. By helping these small-timers to develop management and marketing skills, these volunteers groups make a significant contribution towards community development.

The economic development policy of the Government draws attention to all segments of the society. The economic development of the country according to the vision of President Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot be confined to a few sectors, a few organisations or a few individuals. A larger cross section of the society must benefit from our initiatives.

When we talk about tourism development it is also interesting to note that Government is not focusing on specific tourism zones like many other counties. For us, the entire country is a tourism development zone. We have set ourselves a target of 22,500 hotel rooms to be built within five years. The capacity expansion plan of the Government covers the entire island from north to south and from east to west. The whole idea is once again the distribution of economic benefits of tourism across the country.

Tourists are today looking for more enriched, meaningful experiences. They demand value for their money. They like to travel short distances and see more things within a limited budget. They look for more activities in a single location. The new positioning strategy of Sri Lanka Tourism takes these global needs into account and tries to capitalise on our inherent strength of being a highly-diversified tourism product.

Three core strengths

Sri Lanka is an island whose main advantages for tourism are authenticity, compactness and diversity. The unique advantage of Sri Lanka as a tourism destination could be elaborated around these three core strengths.

With 2,600 years of recorded history, everything about Sri Lanka is authentic and there is no necessity to manufacture a story for marketing purposes. Nature has blessed the country, making it an extremely attractive destination for tourism. So authenticity is our first advantage.

With only 65,610 sqkm land mass, the entire island of Sri Lanka can be explored within a few days. Even the longest distance across the country can be covered within a few hours and if you are flying, within one hour. Even a busy traveller can see most parts of the country within a short period of time due to this second advantage, which is being compact.

The third and the biggest advantage is the unparalleled diversity of our tourism product. Sri Lanka has an inherent advantage of having a highly diversified tourism product, which could be pitched against any other well-established tourism destination in the world.

It has beaches like Maldives or Mauritius, ancient heritage sites like Egypt or Greece, rain forests like Congo or Amazon, art and culture like India or Thailand, waterfalls like Zambia or Canada, wildlife like Kenya or South Africa, natural beauty like Switzerland or Myanmar, gemstones like Madagascar or Burma, spices like India or Indonesia and festivals like China or Brazil.

Now just think of any tourism destination in the world where you can find all these in one place. Even if you do, where else can you cover all these within a few days? Sri Lanka is probably the only country which makes it possible. To many tourists, visiting Sri Lanka is a refreshing experience. The whole country is a natural wonder. That is why in our tourism promotions we use the tag line ‘Refreshingly Sri Lanka – the Wonder of Asia’.

Ladies and gentlemen, when Professor Philip Kotler, the world marketing guru, visited Sri Lanka last year, he made an interesting observation. He rated Sri Lanka as the greenest country in the whole world. We are a green destination by all means as I have explained to you so far. We are definitely part of the new generation of tourism destinations which care for our environment and our people.

We know that you appreciate our efforts in securing the future of our planet by meeting the economic and social needs of the present without undermining the ecosystems that sustain the current and future generations. So this is your opportunity to visit us and experience for yourself: ‘Refreshingly Sri Lanka – the Wonder of Asia’.

Thank you.