Glimpse of Nish's world

Subsequent to the successful tourism promotions in France and The Netherlands, Sri Lanka Tourism had further good news in the German and the UK markets. The travel advisory in Germany was reviewed by the authorities.

The earlier 'advice against travelling to Sri Lanka if not essential' has been deleted from the text of the German travel advisory. Director of the Tourist Board Office in Germany Channa Jayasekera said "this would definitely be most encouraging to the tour operators and travel agents selling Sri Lanka, as the earlier advisory led to confusion and was negatively interpreted by the public.

After a stakeholders meeting organised by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board Office in the UK, where our concerns were shared through the Pacific Asia Travel Association's (PATA) UK Chapter, Association of National Tourist Office Representatives (ANTOR) and Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the FCO has further softened their travel advisory to Sri Lanka.

"The advisory has been reviewed and reissued with an amendment to the Summary and local travel section, where it now states 'we no longer advice against travel to the city of Anuradapura' Director UK and Ireland of the Tourist Board Jean-Marc Flambert said.

Labels: Anuradapura, Germany, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Travel Advisories, UK

French tourists, hopefully in droves, are poised to return to Sri Lanka after the country was cleared for travel as a tourism destination.

A Sri Lanka Day organized by its Tourist Board office in Paris was held last week with Minister of Tourism Milinda Moragoda, Chairman of the Tourist Board Renton de Alwis and the Additional Director-General Dileep Mudadeniya attending in order to introduce new products and the measures taken to re-launch the destination and renew its identity.

The Tourist Board said in a statement that the Sri Lanka Day provided an opportunity for the Board to reveal vital information for the French market.

It said fully aware of its negative image in the French market , Sri Lanka Tourism opted for transparency and requested an independent private French security firm to conduct a security audit related to tourism activities. The evaluation, conducted over a period of 12 days by Sécurité Sans Frontières (SSF), covered various tourism sites, hotel infrastructures, airport and other forms of transport as well as general conditions of security (political, social, health and weather-related issues). The findings and methodology and the fact that it was performed independently (no complicity) of the audit were revealed to the public on September 11 at UNESCO. According to Frédéric Bauer, Président of SSF, “the in-depth study of the security conditions has permitted us to make specific and detailed technical recommendations. The terrorist risk is not that greater in Sri Lanka than other countries visited by the French …. In conclusion, the security situation for us is acceptable for tourism visits to Sri Lanka and I take responsibility for recommending the destination for French Tourists.”

The Board said this positive conclusion is a welcome change to the position adopted by the travel advisory of the French Foreign Ministry which contributed to a great extent the increasing negative perception of the destination due to the security problems related to the North and East of the country.

The active re-launch of the destination will be put in place through various activities with the tourism professionals. They included a “Half Price for your Better Half” from October to December 2007 and January 2008 package; Incentive for Travel Agents; Mega fam trips; Joint Promotions by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board and Tour Operators willing to participate on an equal basis in the costs; a Treasure Hunt that will take place from October 5-12 in Sri Lanka to discover exceptional tourist sites for travel agents.

Labels: France, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Tourism, Sri Lanka Travel Advice, Sri Lanka Travel Advisories

Sept 15, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is confident of achieving its target of attracting 600,000 tourists this year following the relaxation of travel advisories in key markets, tourist board officials say.

"We are confident that this year, looking at the progress we have, we'll be able to achieve 600,000 tourists for this year," S. Kalaiselvan, director general of Sri Lanka Tourist Board (SLTB) told LBO.

Some 44,500 tourists visited the island in August, considered one of the peak seasons, with a traditional Buddhist pageant in the central hill country town of Kandy in which a phalanx of elephants parade, being a major attraction.

Although the number was lower than last year's arrivals for the month, the SLTB is confident the winter season will be better than last year's as European countries have lifted and relaxed some of the travel warnings that were in force.

"The French travel advisory has been liberalized now and is more conducive for the French tourists to visit us. The Netherlands have also lifted their travel advisory," Kalaiselvan says.

"These are good signs to say that the situation in Sri Lanka is conducive for tourists to visit."

The country got over 313,000 tourist arrivals up to August but it was nearly 92,000 lower than the number of visitors compared to the same period last year.

The travel advisories were issued last year when the conflict between the between Tamil Tigers and the government forces intensified.

The Tigers attacked key points in the capital as well as other parts of Sri Lanka during the last quarter of 2006 which led to a sharp fall in tourist arrivals.

This resulted in many hotels being virtually empty during the off-season with average occupancy dropping to around 45-50 percent.

According to statistics, Sri Lanka was unable to achieve the 600,000 visitor target last year and had to settle for 559,000 tourist arrivals.

The country's 26-billion-dollar economy earned nearly 400 million dollars from tourism last year, the fourth largest foreign currency earner behind tea, clothing and remittances from abroad.
Source : LBO

Labels: Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Tourism, Sri Lanka Travel Advice, Sri Lanka Travel Advisories

Tourist arrivals in the first half of this year dipped by 24.4% but with the industry counting on the improved prospects for the upcoming season has been backed by travel advisories that have been relaxed in the run-up to the winter season just ahead.

In this respect it was pointed out recently that the government of Netherlands, which had a negative travel advisory on Sri Lanka has relaxed its advisory to enable Dutch Tour Operators to aggressively market Sri Lanka. The advisory which earlier started that it was unsafe to travel to Sri Lanka, now sates that Dutch travellers must b cautious when traveling and that they must use formal means of transport and tour operations.

In 2006, there were 19,360 numbers of tourist visitors from the Netherlands. Between January and July in 2006, the Dutch arrivals stood at 12,593 and for the same period in 2007, it was 10,083 register in a drop of 19.9%.

“We expect the arrivals from the Netherlands now progressively to get back to normalcy with the softening of the Travel Advisory. Sri Lanka Tourism will carryout strong promotions in the Dutch market in the future to regain and develop strong market share. We are also thankful to our Ambassador in the Netherlands Ms. Pamela Deen for her determined efforts made to bring this change” said Renton de Alwis, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board.

Minister of Tourism, Milinda Moragoda who will be leading a promotional delegation to France after the softening of the French Travel Advisory, has asked Sri Lanka Tourism officials and the private sector to also meet with the Dutch Tour Operators to discuss future plans.

Labels: Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Holiday, Sri Lanka Tourism, Sri Lanka Travel Advice, Sri Lanka Travel Advisories