TAAI 2005

“Sri Lanka Is A Leader In Tourism Crisis Management”

The Sri Lankan government ensures that the industry is geared with the required professionalism says Anura Bandaranike, Honorable Minister of Tourism, government of Sri Lanka. In an interview he tells Reema Sisodia that he believes there is a need for greater synergy between Sri Lanka and India in the coming years.

What is the role of the Sri Lankan government in tourism promotion?

Sri Lankan government has identified tourism as a key economic activity of the country and is playing a strategic as well as operational role in the areas of development, training and marketing. The responsibility of identifying tourism zones and developing these areas in conjunction with the private sector and ensuring that the development is sustainable is the role of the Sri Lankan government. The government also ensures that the industry is geared with the required level of professionalism. The tourism management institutions and satellite schools all over the country are given this task. The government is also involved in making use of all the channels and tools such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity and public relations activities. The government also provides direction to the tourist board offices abroad as well as their marketing representatives through the Sri Lanka Tourist Board.

Sri Lanka offers diverse products and attractions from nature, culture, to adventure, and has been positioned as ‘a land like no other.’ Our marketing and promotional activities revolve around this positioning while taking into account the preference of the traveller and characteristics of each individual market. The government also encourages the industry to take part in popular global travel fairs and well as a PR campaign targeting 24 countries.

What synergies do you visualise between India and Sri Lanka?

The true binding of the two countries for over two thousand years, reinforced by our political and economic relationship after the independence, which we fought for together, is also reflected through tourism. As you know, India is number one market for Sri Lanka and the influx of tourists from India to Sri Lanka will be doubled in the near future with the increasing air travel opportunities as well as other conducive factors namely, the increasing income of the middle class and trade transactions. The free trade agreement between our two countries have helped a great deal and also the TAAI convention being held in Colombo this year will also help boost the tourist traffic from India. Meanwhile the traffic from Sri Lanka to India is also encouraging. At present the tourists from Sri Lanka are mainly pilgrims and shoppers but we will soon see an increase in numbers for holiday tours. There is also a strong cultural factor with Sri Lankan movie fans getting more and more interested in Bollywood productions and Indian film stars. In short, we believe that there is scope for greater synergy in the coming years between our two countries.

Do you have a crisis management team in place?

Sri Lanka is a leader in tourism crisis management and that is why our tourism industry has been resilient to any kind of disasters. The way we handled the post Tsunami tourism revival operation was highly commended by WTO and other international agencies and communities. We have the ability to activate our contingency plans immediately in case of disasters whatever they may be and make an early recovery. All our past records confirm this. Our tourism crisis management team consists of representatives from all quarters from government to the private sector and this is directly linked to main crisis management body under the leadership of her Excellency the President.

What has been the role of Sri Lankan Airlines in tourism promotion?

We always believe in carrying out joint promotions for synergistic results. There is a close working relationship between the overall plans of SriLankan Airlines and other tourism authorities such as Sri Lanka Tourist Board and Sri Lanka Convention Bureau and this is a strength, which we hope to take full advantage of, in our future plans too.

How do you manage to handle media reports about safety and security that can hamper tourism in the region?

First and foremost its our primary duty to always tell the truth. Sri Lanka's recovery from the Tsunami was much faster because of this policy. We want credible news to reach the media so that their audience will be well informed of the true situation. Secondly we encourage them to witness the situation for themselves so that the news that is reported will be first hand. Also whenever there is a case of misreporting, we take corrective action to ensure the error is rectified and this can be done easily thanks to media relations built up over a period of time.