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Tuesday, 23 June 2015 00:11 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Sri Lankan Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB) has reached an agreement with SriLankan Airlines to cooperate on a joint promotions campaign.
The campaign will include visiting journalist programs and travel agent familiarisation initiatives while SriLankan Airlines will display SLTPB promotional videos on their flights.
“We have already launched joint working partnership/promotions in many countries not only on travel trade fairs but joint strategy development. We tested the working relationship in the Italian market that included a top visiting journalist program with the country head for Sri Lankan personally accompanying the delegation given the new strategy we are implementing in the Italian market.
“Sri Lanka as a destination has taken the high ground in this market and now we plan on making this a 100,000 visitor source market with a strong Sri Lanka Tourism-SriLankan Airlines partnership which includes working with the largest tour operator in Italy and a blue chip company in Sri Lanka,” SLTPB Chairman Rohantha Athukorala remarked.
His comments came in the backdrop of a 26% Year-on-Year increase and 14% cumulative increase in tourist arrivals to the country in May, resulting in $ 1 billion in tourism earnings by April 2015.
“We have now extended this working partnership to India which is the largest inbound source market for Sri Lanka, targeting 335,000 visitors in 2015, even though the market generates only 13% in revenue generation. We will also make this partnership work in Japan, France and Germany in the near future not forgetting the all important UK market that accounts for 22% of the revenue generation for the country.
“Separately, in the backdrop of the launch in Galle, we will do a global blitz in a historic tripartite relationship with Tea Board, Sri Lanka Tourism and Sri Lanka Airlines on the project, Guinness Record Initiative in Melbourne and thereafter in Sydney together with the leading tea exporters in the country followed with a road show in Melbourne for the leading 30 travel agents and subsequently be at the Sydney world travel tourism fair 2015,” Athukorala said.
“This is a campaignable idea given that Sri Lanka Tourism has a dedicated area in any key travel fair be it ITB Germany, KOTFA South Korea, ATM in Dubai, in Italy it is at World Expo 2015. We must synergise our global communication efforts,” he added.
Athukorala admitted that trying to do global promotions without a dedicated communication partner, PR Agency and Digital partner was a handicap to the SLTPB noting that the current ‘Push’ strategy was therefore focused on ‘middle men’ and partnerships to reach consumers but he noted that once an advertising agency or PR company was brought into the mix, the strategy would shift to ‘consumer pull’ hinging on brand building communication.
