Once gone, always gone

Tourism is like no other. It’s never a stand-alone. It draws from almost all the resources we have around us.

At a destination, the natural setting, if ocean-lined the beaches, the forests, hills, waterfalls, lakes, villus, lagoons, people and their heritage and culture, what they do, what they eat and drink, how they sing and dance, their belief systems and worship, festivals, how they live and work, all go into making that final tourism output we present as the ‘the experience’.

Unfortunately, there is very little focus and attention that tourism strategists and planners at the NTOs pay to such ingredients. Much effort is placed on where visitors must stay and what they should eat and drink, while on holiday.

This, borrowed from the dominant model of tourism of destinations which have little to offer other than ‘good time fun,’ has unfortunately been the centre of attraction for most, even at an exotic, heritage and culture-rich destination like Sri Lanka.

The ideas are many and varied and mostly everyone who has travelled abroad has an opinion on travel and tourism development. What most do not see is that Sri Lanka, having relatively ‘stood still’ in time in terms of big time development within the past three decades, has retained what most other similar destinations have lost as a result of rapid paced growth.

We have retained our charm in terms of our biological diversity in most areas. We are blessed with a 50 per cent green cover and a near 29 per cent forest cover. The pristine nature of our coastal areas in the east and north are still intact and present opportunities for offering high quality experiences to both local and foreign travellers.

There is a revival of our cultural consciousness and we are looking back to celebrate the ethnic and religious diversity that is Sri Lanka to seek a unique unity within it.

Look to ecosystems

Some thinking contributors have suggested that we learn from the very basic but complex workings of natural ecosystems to form our ways and offers, when we celebrate the unity within our own diversity.

Some have shown us that Sri Lanka indeed is one wholesome theme park that does not need to have ‘built structures’ or set-up artificial theme parks or resorts. Our many offerings in a compact space – the Sinhaharaja, Knuckles Range, Horton Plains, the several wildlife parks and sanctuaries, the many pageants and celebrations such as we see every Poya day, serene environments at our temples and meditation retreats, church and kovil feasts, Kandy perahera, the various village market places (pola), the harvesting ceremonies, Sinhala and Tamil Avurudu, Vesak, the Pasku (Easter) passion plays, Thaipusam and Kavadi festivals and Friday prayers at the Mosques dotting our island – all form the scope of our theme park-like diversity.

What we do not do adequately is appreciate and understand the significance and value of these for us to be able to present them to the world of travel with courage and confidence.

We need to develop simple but quality infrastructure facilities to make these experiences enjoyable such as the comfort centres and toilets, roadways, other facilities and take on serious promotion of these thematic events and activities including facilities for the elderly and for those with special needs.

We also need to do away with the sad practices we have got used to in touting, harassment, charging exorbitant entry fees to places of worship and the high levels of commissions added beyond the value of the goods and services offered.

Don’t count heads, count retained value

Perhaps Sri Lanka’s tourism policy makers should not be bothered too much about what volume of visitors we should have, be it 2.5 million by 2016 or a million by 2012.

Nor should they rush to harness the potential of the north and the east to meet the fast-paced demand that will come, by taking on unsustainable models of tourism development.

Our focus should be on gaining the highest possible yield from tourism through exercising the least pressure on resources. Attention must be placed on gaining direct benefit in foreign exchange earnings for the country and our people. We must ensure that a substantial portion of the forex earned from tourism is retained within the country, by both minimising the need for input imports and plugging the avenues available for leakage and non-retention of earnings.

A solid shared vision

In spite of the many different fronts calling for very rapid development in tourism for its pull in earning forex, what we need to do, I believe, is to get the vision for our tourism future solid and right and begin to work towards achieving it, without diversion and with strong focus. It must be a shared vision made with the participation and buy-in of our people, done through dialogue and discussion utilising public media.

The past over 40 years of tourism in Sri Lanka saw tourism develop as an elitist industry, except for a few exceptions, for example. Hikkaduwa, Unawatuna, Weligama, Arugam Bay, Mt. Lavinia, Kalkudah (prior to 1983) and some areas of Beruwala and Bentota.

The next phase of our tourism development needs to be a tourism driven by communities with a wider spread of stakeholdership and participation.

This is possible today given the growth of new free independent travel demand at the mid and high-ends of the market, which was absent in the early stages of tourism’s development.

What we need to do is to focus our energies to learn of and work on our potential customers in both conventional and new market places.

We must understand and know what they think and expect of us before we can determine what and how we are to talk to them, to present the brand of tourism resources we have carved for ourselves, making it sustainable and beneficial for all Sri Lankans.

Unfortunately, most of our conventional marketers and ‘tourism strategists’ seem to analyse past trends and figures, presenting them in attractive presentation formats, comparing them with other destinations – some of which have even got it wrong – to ensure the continuation of the dominance of the current operational system that is based on the dominance of a few and not the participation of the many.  They also attempt to show that what we must go on feeding the currently available model and facilities and do not encourage new breakaway thinking to make the destination ‘stand tall in the crowd’. Most of these models are replications of another from elsewhere, without an understanding of our own ethos or the uniqueness of the offer we have.

Strategy

The need to strategise is talked about, but very little is done to set up the forums needed to discuss and formulate that strategy. Often the wait is for funds to come in from overseas donors and well-wishers in ‘project’ form to begin such processes.  The truth is that we only need the will and a space to meet often to present ideas, discuss them bringing all stakeholders to the fold and formulate that strategy.

Almost every other profession has such a forum in the form of a ‘strategic think tank’ of an ‘institute’. But tourism does not have one yet; not even after a half century of its operational existence as a professional activity.

Earlier it was ‘bad time blues’ and the focus had to be on survival. Now that good times have come, that gets on the ‘back burners’ for it is time to play ‘catch-up’ and ‘make the most’ of the ‘opportunities’. What we must remember is that tourism is like no other.

It draws from all and if we lose much of what we draw from and make hasty moves, we will be placed in a situation where we may never be able to optimise on the very advantages we have as a tourism destination that is yet pristine and exotic.

Since it is an ‘once gone, always gone’ process, it is important that all thinking heads in the industry join in to ‘strategise’ and not just move on to criticise individual actions, comment on individual projects or sing hosannas of and for each other.