The stakeholders are puzzled over the recent comments expressed by Sri Lanka Tourism chairman Dr Nalaka Godahewa where in a recent speech made at the ‘CIM Talking Point’, he had been quoted in the media to have said that Sri Lanka Tourism would refrain from running promotional campaigns for the next two years.“I think stopping all promotional campaigns completely is not good although I agree that building infrastructure should take precedence over the promotional campaigns. In this competitive global environment, Sri Lanka should be constantly known just as you advertise a product to the market,” Sri Lal Miththapala, the immediate Past-President of the Hotels Association who is now a project director at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce told The Bottom Line.
He said that although stopping promotions for a few months will not impact the numbers in the short term, stopping them for as much as for two years, would impact the numbers drastically in the long run.
Similar views were expressed by some other industry stakeholders this paper also spoke to.
Earlier, Dr Godahewa, in his speech had argued that a severe reduction of publicity was being contemplated as a result of the unpreparedness of the industry and due to present ‘infrastructure constraints’.
He is also reported to have said that sweeping changes will be made to Sri Lanka tourism in future such as the amalgamation of the five tourist boards into one authority and that the planned 2011 as ‘Visit Sri Lanka Year’ will now not be celebrated in a full scale.
During the speech, Dr Godahewa is stated to have said that Sri Lanka would get 850,000 tourists next year even without running promotional campaigns and commented that the targeted 2.5 million tourists by 2016 is ‘not a very well calculated number’.
Attempts to get a response from Dr Godahewa on his opinion proved futile as he did not call back to a message left with his secretary nor reply to an email sent to his email address.
