• Tomorrow is World Tourism Day
• Country has over-relied on ‘sun-sea-sand’
• Local offering needs relevant positioning

Tomorrow, 27 September, is World Tourism Day. For Sri Lanka, there’s no doubt that tourism is a resilient industry, bouncing back from woes that may seem insurmountable. But paradigms are changing and the traveller today has very different demands, needs, and expectations. Whether Sri Lanka has remained relevant to the changing paradigms is a question that begs to be asked. While our product is unique and diverse, Sri Lanka has relied too long on touting the same formula of “sun-sea-sand”, with a dash of history and nature thrown in. But Sri Lanka hasn’t moved past the starting post. The fact that there are missing ingredients doesn’t push the destination to top-of-mind recall, despite neighbours in both South Asia and Southeast Asia having a burgeoning tourism industry. On Kaleidoscope’s World Tourism Day Special, three thought leaders – RETRACE Hospitality Founder Chalana Perera, BRANDit India Chief Executive Officer (CEO)/Co-Founder Lubaina Sheerazi, and Cinnamon City Hotels Area Vice President Kamal Munasinghe – detail those missing ingredients. They present a simple formula to sell the product right by rethinking, resetting, and regenerating. And the process, too, is uncomplicated because “change is us”! RETRACE Hospitality Founder Chalana Perera is a regenerative tourism expert based out of Sri Lanka. Previously based in Amsterdam, he has worked across Europe developing lifestyle hotels and hybrid hospitality concepts for international investment funds, sharing his experiences as a speaker at ITB Berlin, MIPIM France, and the Young Hoteliers Summit Switzerland.     How relevant is Sri Lanka’s tourism product right now?   Sri Lanka’s tourism product and Sri Lanka as a destination have probably never been more relevant to the world travel markets than they are today. We have a blessing in disguise, which is our series of problems or various complex phenomena – the biggest of which is the economic crisis. These problems are actually opportunities, because Sri Lanka’s relevance is a good example that we can survive on nature-based solutions and regenerate our destinations to live more holistically and in alignment with our wellbeing and the wellbeing of our planet. Sri Lanka has the mindfulness, the wellness, high-quality local nutrition, and a sustainable living and lifestyle that is inherent to our culture, which is what the world is moving towards.   If you took a quick SWOT analysis of our product, what would you say?   Our strengths are our diversity including our biodiversity, our location – convenient for the entire world – and most importantly our non-political alignment, a feature the industry overlooks. Being non-aligned, we welcome travellers from China, India, Russia, North America, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia. However, we have a misunderstanding about what it means to be a tourism destination and to have high-value products and experiences. Sri Lanka is obsessed with millions of arrivals and billions of dollars. Competing with Singapore, Dubai, and Thailand is not the right approach either. Our problems are our opportunities. The world is moving to a more digital landscape, but at the same time, travellers are looking at switching off and disconnecting. Sri Lanka can offer both. We have a year-round attractive climate, nine provinces which we never talk about, and “Destination Colombo”, which is completely different from “Destination Sri Lanka”. There is massive opportunity, but it needs to be kept simple. We don’t need million-dollar projects, large hotels, and mega complexes, which import raw materials and require borrowed capital. Our natural asset is our country, the natural beauty is what people come for. And that requires little investment but will generate tremendous economic value and social upliftment of our communities, cascading to a higher quality of life. The biggest threat to Sri Lanka’s tourism is Sri Lankans themselves because the decisions made about tourism are made by those who do not consume the product and travel the world in ways that travellers who come to Sri Lanka do. Travel is now about a conscious mindset and not that know-it-all arrogant approach.   If we are to reset and regenerate, where do we start?   Resetting and regenerating starts from within. Sri Lankans need to look inwards, regardless of the social strata. But this needs systemic change, requiring the industry to think differently about how it treats employees, works with suppliers, and moves away from commission models to value-based partnerships. Right now, we don’t own our destination and that has to change!  ============================== BRANDit India CEO/Co-Founder Lubaina Sheerazi   India is our top tourist arrivals market now, with over 80,000 arrivals since January this year. In the same period last year, we had just 1,532 visitors from India. The potential to tap into a market of one billion is immense and is evident from the increasing numbers from India. However, like the rest of the world, the Indian traveller’s “to-do” list for travel is changing and Sri Lanka needs to take that into account, sooner rather than later. Kaleidoscope invited Indian tourism and branding expert BRANDit India CEO and Co-Founder Lubaina Sheerazi to get the pulse of the new-age Indian traveller and what changes Sri Lanka needs to make to tap into that highly lucrative market. Lubaina has two decades of experience across multiple verticals specialising in destination and hospitality representation and is the go-to advisor for international destinations which truly wish to transform their profile and positioning in the Indian market.   What is the new-age Indian traveller looking for in a vacation destination, and does Sri Lanka have what they want?   The new-age traveller – millennials and Gen-Z – travel differently from previous generations. They want travel to be transformational and meaningful, coming from a thought process that “you only live once”. Sri Lanka has all that to offer, except that is not how it is perceived in India. Sri Lanka is seen as a short weekend getaway, a budget destination that was part of domestic offerings of large tour operators. While it appeals across all price points, it is more appealing to the lower end of the market. There’s a huge opportunity that Sri Lanka is missing out on because India has the appetite and the budget; we can do short and long stays and we can keep returning to Sri Lanka again and again. Changing the positioning is extremely important.   How should Sri Lanka position itself to be attractive as a destination?   Sri Lanka has some of the most outstanding experiences; it’s a very wholesome product offering. Each of these experiences must be told through stories, a narrative with a multi-pronged approach targeting families and young adults, celebrations, meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE), and religious-based tourism. A strong digital presence for younger audiences is imperative and also cost-effective. You need a relevant and strong social media strategy and a good collective of opinion leaders and influencers to be your brand evangelists. That’s a good way to start off.  ============================== City hotels in Sri Lanka have been around for decades, promoting urban tourism. In the Western Province alone there are 58 classified hotels, of which 12 are five-star hotels. The total room inventory in the province is over 16,000, while Colombo officially has nearly 300 registered restaurants. While cities have themselves been influenced by colonisation, Sri Lanka’s urban tourism has not gained sufficient traction, nor have we readied for the urban traveller. Cinnamon City Hotels Area Vice President Kamal Munasinghe, whose experience in the tourism industry spans Vietnam, Kuala Lumpur, Switzerland, and Sri Lanka, joined Kaleidoscope to shed light on the urban tourism recipe needed for Colombo.   Are city hotels ready for the new-age traveller?   We have some work to do. The industry has been evolving for decades, but while we also see a huge urge to travel post-pandemic and city hotels have the rooms to meet that demand, we need to work on our product and destination experience. Even right now, there’s much to offer but that message has not gone out. We need to build on those experiences, change the way it is communicated, and make Colombo a destination in its own right.   What is lacking?   In food and beverage services (F&B), we have a variety, but when it comes to entertainment, there’s room for lots more improvement. We need week-round entertainment, not just on the weekends. We need to get our message out that Colombo is the city to be in. As industry partners, we have a responsibility to ensure we get ready for the big travel boon that’s on our doorstep. The future is bright, we just need to be ready for it so we can maximise the advantage.