Financial Times

When PR and the Tourist Board don’t mix
By Robert Ingall
Certain eyebrows have been raised in recent months due to the sacking of three women working for Batey, a PR and branding company, who were posted to the Tourist Board’s offices to work with senior officials there. Not to mention the differences as to why the PR company’s contract was terminated early through a get-out clause.

And the connection between Batey and the Tourist Board? The latter had hired the former to raise the Sri Lanka brand and thus increase the number of visitors. And what started as a venture to improve the country’s image overseas ended rather differently depending on who you talk to.

The working relationship began with a three-year contract that became effective in January 2004. And one of the first things that Batey did was invite the world’s media, including major TV player, such as the BBC, to top-of-the-range magazines and newspapers, to discover first hand the delights of Sri Lanka.

Over the next year tourist arrivals increased, and the relations between the two sides were amicable, with S. Kalaiselvam, the Board’s Director-General, saying: “There was a good working relationship.”

To help bolster the relationship, according to Gerry Delilkhan, an Executive Director at Batey, the Tourist Board then asked the company to set up an office in its building. “The move was seen as a good idea, as it would literally mean a closer working relationship,” adding that the only strange request was for the staff to be sent be female.

The women sent were expected to also travel with Board staff when working abroad. For 2005 it was decided by Batey that there should be a big event that would register Sri Lanka worldwide, with the company deciding to base the event on the Kandy drum beat. The event became known as the WOMAD Festival of Drums, held from September 21 to 25.

Knowing that there had to be foreign guest performers to truly make the event the Board went about the business of raising money. Initially it got Rs 16 million from the government, but soon realised that more was needed — the extra was refused. Then entering the scene was a Batey staff member who produced a note to the Board inferring that the PR company would raise Rs 45 million through sponsorship and cash. The problem here: “Batey was not in the business of raising funds,” said Mr. Delilkhan.

The fallout from the note was that the Board expected Batey to come up with the Rs 45 million to pay WOMAD due to the proffered note, where the member of staff eventually got sacked for misrepresenting the company, but the festival went ahead and was acclaimed a great success.

But this wasn’t the end of the affiliated Batey branch attached to the Board’s office. As Mr. Delilkhan explains, “With the new government coming to power at the end of last year, there was a delay over who was to be the chairman of the Board. Was the chairman of the Board going to be the same or someone else his place?

“To my surprise there was a press release that had no letterhead or contact address, or contact number, released. The release mentioned Batey, saying that the then chairman was going to continue in his position. My company’s name was even used in certain newspaper headlines,” he continued. The thing is such releases cannot be sent out without the consent of Batey’s senior management.

It seems that the Batey’s senior representative in the country was going to have to do some investigating. The two women at the Board’s office were questioned on the matter but denied any knowledge of the matter.
As one of the perks working for Batey is that employees get a laptop with the job, it was decided to get an IT expert in to search the hard drive — and “both had drafts of the ‘mysterious’ letter,” the executive director said. And it seems the girls knew who wrote it as well, Mr. Delilkhan said.
Due to the major disregard in company rules, the two women were fired from their Rs 200,000-a-month jobs, a move that seemed to upset some of the higher-ups at the Tourist Board.

The reality of the situation though, according to Mr. Delilkhan was that Batey was given three months notice of termination of contract due to “lack of performance”.

“This [the termination] was because the Board had decided to set up its own promotion department”, according to Mr. Kalaiselvam. But according to Dr. P. Ramunujan, Secretary at the Ministry for Tourism, the contract was terminated due to the Board being unhappy with the PR company’s work.
Thus coming to the reason why Batey is threatening to sue the board for lack of payment.

The company was paid every quarter after giving a briefing to the parties involved, and getting the payment accepted by the Tourist Ministry’s permanent secretary. The strange thing here is that after the two women were fired it was deemed that Batey’s work was unacceptable or that they were not needed due to the Board setting up its own department.
One thing that is known is that Batey is willing to sue for the failure of payment for its last quarter even though the performance has been accepted by the Tourism Ministry. WOMAD is still waiting for Rs 45 million for festival fees, and the Board thinks Batey is the one to pay. Watch this space …

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