The much awaited two months global PR campaign will kick off by the mid of this month followed by the six-month advertising campaign which will be initiated as soon as the Cabinet approval is obtained for the advertising agency to boost back the Sri Lankan tourism industry from negative impacts followed by the Easter attack.
Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Chairman Kishu Gomes told Finance that after the Cabinet approval is obtained it might take two weeks time for the necessary agreements to be signed and to make the action plan into progress. Various activities related to marketing communication are in place to promote Sri Lanka across the globe as a safe destination for tourism among all the travel markets. Hence a quick revival in the industry is expected.
The London based J.Walter Thompson (JWT) had been chosen as the PR agency to represent Sri Lanka in the global market with an investment of Rs.415 million. JWT who also won the Rs.314 million contract to develop the country’s latest brand and the tag line ‘So Sri Lanka’, was specifically chosen for this accounting for the knowledge and experience that they have relating to the tourism industry of the country.
“They know the pros and cons regarding our industry and further they had also done researches for our prior projects, thus I’ confident that they would support us a lot and make this campaign successful,” he added. He also said that there had been an increment in the number of tourist arrivals per day in June which was 2300 from May which was 1300 with a 70 percent month on month increase.
“So far all the things that we have done in reviving the industry were successful and we expect people to see a successful outcome of this campaign too,” he said. Gomes said that with all the plans currently been implemented and about to be implemented, the industry would bounce back to normalcy at the end of this year. If the government and the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) work together with a common strategy on a common platform, then outcomes would be very beneficial for the industry.
