Sri Lanka to Tailor Tourist Promotions to Indian States

Sri Lankas tourism promotion agency will market Sri Lanka to Indians on a state by state basis, with the Gujarat in Andhra Pradesh as its pilot project, officials said.

Head of Sri Lanka Renton de Alwis says India is a large market but it is difficult to market due its large size.

"So we want to be state-specific and segment-specific," says, De Alwis.

India has one of the largest and fastest growing middle classes in the world, with approximately 300 million people.

By September 2008, 63,915 Indians had visited Sri Lanka down from 77,900 in the same period, a year earlier.

Sri Lanka's tourist industry wants to reverse the trend. The new campaign will kick off in Gujarat to be followed by Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore.

Air travel - especially over long distances - has been made prohibitively expensive over the past year. Though oil prices are falling, many Western economies are in turmoil. Worries about job losses are hardly conducive for a holiday mood.

Sri Lanka's internal conflict has also resulted in travel advisories being issued by Western governments.

Sri Lanka's tourist industry is hoping that Indian holidaymakers would prove more resilient.

"India is a growing economy and the downturn in the world economy would not affect India that much as the rest of world," hopes Ajith Gunawardane, deputy chairman of John Keells Holdings which runs hotels both in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

"Last year nine million Indians traveled out of India, we want to capture six to seven percent of that."

The countries that attract most Indian tourists are Singapore and Dubai, says Gunawardane. Both are shopping paradises.

Special Attractions

But officials are banking on Sri Lanka's proximity and wide variety of attractions to tempt the tastes of different Indian visitors.

"Sri Lanka is one of the closes travel destinations to the Indian Traveler," says Amal Goonetilleke, deputy chairman of the City Hotels Association.

"People from Chennai like to see temples and go to places like Nuwara Eliya which is quite similar to Ute in India.

"People from Delhi, like night life, discos, and casinos," says Goonetilleke.

Officials are also hoping to spice up the menus of local hotels to suit the Indian palate, by flying in Indian chefs to train Sri Lankans.

"We would conduct classes to cater the needs of regional travelers," says Bernard Goonatilleke head Sri Lanka's state-run hotel school.

"Chefs will come on short training courses".

Officials say Sri Lanka hotel room rates are also much lower than India now. A five star room in Colombo is about 70 US dollars.

"Indian hotels are very expensive. The equivalent to Taj Colombo would cost 300 500 dollars," say De Alwis.

SriLankan Airlines, the island's national carrier, says it will link with regional Indian airlines to provide cost effective connection from different states.

"We have 27 points in India and we want to expand, but then have to look at the competition," Amith Sumanapala, head of the travel arm of SriLankan

"Our strategy would be to tie up with other regional airlines as feeder routes. Already we are in talks with King Fisher, Jet Airways and Indian Airlines."

SriLankan has been cutting frequencies to some destinations after the country opened up to foreign competition and a large number of foreign carriers started to fly in. Its 100 weekly flights to India has been cut to 77.

Officials are hoping that the new promotion would lure more Indians to Sri Lanka where hotel room rates are also much lower than in India.

Source://asia.news.yahoo.com