Sri Lanka banks on India to boost tourism this year after “bad press”.
ECONOMYNEXT: Sri Lanka is aiming to target 230 million India’s increasingly growing middle-class families as well as corporates to boost faltering tourism industry specially after the political crisis that toppled the government and a prolonged economic crisis, officials said.
Tourist arrivals to the island nation witnessed its worst last month in 11 months and the Sri Lankan officials have blamed bad press for the drop citing that many foreigners still believe that Sri Lanka still faces shortage of essentials like food and fuel.
Sri Lanka has already revised down its tourism arrival target to 800,000 from 1 million for this year. It has also slashed the estimated tourism revenue to $1.7 billion from $1.8 billion.
The Sri Lakan government now considers wooing affordable Indians to boost the industry and earn some foreign currency amid an ongoing economic crisis and forex shortage.
“The Indian market is the closest to our country. We have the aircraft’s connectivity, the bond with India,” Tourism Minister Harin Fernando told reporters
“They have a strong middle class of 230 million. If we target 10% of it, and make plans to bring the 23 million Indians down to Sri Lanka by next year, it is a huge win.”
India is the largest market for Sri Lanka’s tourism earrings. The highest tourist arrival of over 86,000 was from India in the first nine months of this year. That accounts for 16.5 percent of the total arrivals to Sri Lanka. The United Kingdom, Russia, Germany and France are followed by India respectively making the top five primary markets for Sri Lanka.
Indian Gamblers in charter flights
The tourism industry has offered many incentives for Indian middle income earners including free air tickets for charter SriLankan flights which brings Indian gamblers to Colombo with a condition of a minimum spending on casinos.
The island nation is also planning to promote meditation and yoga centers in Sri Lanka with the help of India’s Shanthigiri Spiritual Center in Kerala with an aim to attract tourists practicing yoga and seeking relaxation.
Chalaka Gajabhahu, the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) said they had a meeting with the officials of MasterCard, which has a strong database of 170 million Indians.
“There is a total middle class population of 230 million who would love to travel around the world. So why can’t we use that database and make small, medium, medium income and premium income packages?,” Gajabahu told the reporters.
Tourism officials also said there had been greater support for Sri Lanka tourism operators who were on a promotion tour in India last month including more tourists reserving Sri Lanka hotels.
Officials also said three more charter fights for gamblers also are fully booked now.
“Currently, we are running 86 flights weekly to India. Before covid, we operated over 100 flights a week. Our effort is to make it to 100 flights again since India is close to our country, our neighbour, and our largest source market,” said Gayan Peiris, the promotions and brand manager at Sri Lankan Airlines. (Colombo/Oct07/2022)
