Financial Times

National tourism strategy of ‘waiting for better times to come’

By Dilshani Samaraweera

Tourism may have not got as worst as this. National tourism authorities have no targets for tourist arrivals, or tourism incomes for 2009, or a detailed contingency plan. Instead, things are expected to improve in 2009 based on the country situation. The sector seems stuck in a ‘wait-and-see” attitude and seems to suffer from mental block that cannot bypass the ‘internal conflict’ excuse.

Tourist arrivals dropped by 10% in 2008, compared to 2007, despite a public spend of Rs 700 million on promotions and about five times this amount spent by the private sector. This follows a 11.7% drop in arrivals in 2007, compared to 2006.

Incomes from tourism are also declining. In 2007 foreign exchange earnings dropped to US$ 384.4 million from US$ 410.3 million in 2006. In 2008, tourism incomes are expected to have dropped further.
“There is no target for this year (2009) as such. But we should have about 400,000 – 450,000 arrivals this year with the promotional drive and with the improvement in the country situation,” said the Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism, George Michael, speaking at a press conference this week to unveil a ‘ 4 year National Strategy’ for tourism.

“With the improvement in the situation in the country, we should have over 400,000 arrivals,” said the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Bernard Goonatilake.

The latest ‘ 4-year National Strategy’ for the sector sets out a target of 1.5 million arrivals by 2016, if the internal conflict is resolved. This same target was put up to be achieved by 2010 some years ago. But instead of increasing, actual arrival numbers have been decreasing. At this point, arrivals from January to November 2008, is totalled at 389,550 compared to 432,892 for the same period 2007.
The tourism authorities say the drop in arrivals was due to security concerns and travel warning issues by foreign governments. Arrivals from western countries like the UK, reduced slightly, while arrivals from Germany, a major traditional western tourist market, reduced “drastically”.

“The travel warning had a serious impact on tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka. But when the situation changes the travel warnings will be relaxed and the arrivals will increase,” said the Director General of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, S Kaleiselvam.

However, despite years of talking about ‘value adding’ and ‘niche tourism,’ up to now, beach tourism or simple sun-and-sand tourism is still the country’s biggest selling tourism product. By pretty much living-off-the-land tourism operators earn about US$ 70 per day, per tourist. The use of higher income generating tourism products, such as MICE (Meetings, Incentives, conferences, Exhibitions) tourism, is still “extremely small.”

“Beach tourism is our largest tourism. Incomes from other types of tourism may be higher. For instance MICE tourism may generate US$ 100 per day, per tourist compared to the US$ 70 per day, per tourist from beach tourism. But this type of tourism (MICE) is still extremely small,” said Mr Kaleiselvam.
According to the national authorities, for the next four years, the total Rs 1 billion annual income of the Tourism Development Fund, will be directed into the 4-year National Strategy. The strategy notes adverse travel advisories as a direct external “challenge” to the industry. But it also notes, as “the most immediate challenge,” the “lack of integration between agencies when undertaking planning.” How such internal challenges are to be addressed is not clear.

But on the bright side, this year, if the government does end the war, the tourism sector can always fall back on the global recession excuse for poor performance and wait for the recession to end to improve tourism in Sri Lanka.


 
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