Authorities here have missed a golden opportunity to portray Sri Lanka as a place for business, tourism and investment during the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, tourism and marketing experts said at a panel discussion held at the auditorium of the Sunday Times on Wednesday.
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| Fans cheer at a World Cup match |
They were asked to comment on whether Sri Lanka had been ‘sufficiently marketed’ through this mega event to showcase the country in the post-war period. The experts were of the view that Sri Lanka has not sufficiently used this major sporting event to promote the country although there was a great opportunity to use the television media to highlight the country’s amazing wildlife reserves, palm-lined beaches and grand historical structures portraying the glorious Colonial, Dutch and Portuguese architecture, among millions of cricket fans across the world watching the matches on TV and glued to their seats for at least seven to eight hours at a time.
The country’s hopes to showcase itself at one of the world's largest sporting events have not been realized up to expectations although Sri Lanka Tourism had announced several World Cup related packages that included tickets to cricket matches as well as visits to tourist sites, they added.
Rohantha Athukorale, a specialised marketer said that the event opened avenues for promoting the Sri Lankan identity world wide, but the question is whether the authorities have been able to explore these avenues.
He said the country could have used the event to start the brand building process of Sri Lanka as over a billion viewers are being reached. “What I would have liked to see in the World Cup live telecast was to highlight -during breaks – Sri Lanka’s wildlife, places like the eighth wonder of the world (Sigiriya), the attractive Kalpitiya islands, etc and something like Sri Lanka’s leopards which are well known. The authorities have not made use of the World Cup live telecasts to show the country’s wild life using television media even for few seconds to attract tourists," he noted.
Expressing a different point of view, Prof. Uditha Liyanage, a specialised marketer and academic, said that nation branding has a huge space. “Few countries are deliberating upon nation branding. But the question is as to whether we should look at sector branding”. Events like the World Cup provide an opportunity to grab the attention of consumers for several hours. One of the most difficult things is to catch the consumers at one place as they are always on the move. “When the people sit and watch cricket matches and you are capturing good 7 to 8 hours, then its a fantastic opportunity. Are we using this opportunity?” he asked. He added that if we have been able to project Sri Lanka as a nice place and the country is now normal using World Cup live telecast, then ‘you do not need to do anything more’.
It emerged that there was no planning or discussion between the authorities – Sri Lanka Cricket, Sri Lanka Tourism and the government – with civil society and the private sector to promote tourism or investments using this mega event. Referring to Tourist arrivals, he said that the Chairman tourist Board had announced that the campaign will begin next week. “We want potential tourists. For this purpose we should attract the attention of travellers on our country’s diversity, authenticity and compactness,” he added. “If these three words can be put across to the target audience using this opportunity, Sri Lanka will be able to achieve something from the World Cup,” he said. The other was to attract the Sri Lankan Diaspora for World Cup matches played in the country.
These Sri Lankans are visiting the country in large numbers to watch school big matches like the Royal-Thomian. He said that he has doubts as to whether the authorities had looked into this aspect or not. “We have missed a chance of attracting Pakistan cricket fans (to visit Sri Lanka as tourists) during their match against Sri Lanka.” He noted that social media – Facebook has some one million Sri Lankan followers -- and Internet have also not been used to its full potential to promote Sri Lanka’s image during the event.
Trevor Reckerman, Head of Marketing from Jetwing Hotels noted that the tourism industry is picking up at present and most of the hotel rooms are full in the aftermath of war. Tourist hotels are displaying giant screens for tourists to watch live telecasts of matches and they are organizing various entertainment for them.
He pointed out that most of the hotels were fully booked during the period of the World Cup by the normal flow of tourists.
He pointed out that most of the tourist hotels in South and North of Colombo would closed for refurbishment from April for around six months. “Therefore it would have been difficult to cater to a sudden surge of tourism and the industry was not prepared for heavy tourism traffic arising from the World Cup,” he said adding that there was not a significant increase in tourist arrivals during World Cup matches played in Sri Lanka .
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