Sri Lanka Tourism has partnered with travel influencers across the world to recreate content on social media platforms, an attempt to keep the ‘So Sri Lanka’ brand active during the ongoing global pandemic.

To keep alive the visibility of Sri Lanka as a holiday destination, the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau (SLTPB) has announced its decision to launch a recovery campaign.

“Realising the strategic importance of maintaining visibility within the select circle of global travel community and having them seriously consider Sri Lanka as a sure-fire travel option, once the state of global travel recovers, Sri Lanka Tourism’s Visiting Blogger Programme (VBP) continues to initiate various destination promotional campaigns by collaborating with them,”  an SLTPB statement said.

“Through this short-term campaign, Sri Lanka Tourism expects to gain collective support from leading travel influencers, specifically from those who have visited Sri Lanka in the past and those who are in a position to recreate fresh travel content, endorsing Sri Lanka to their millions of global audiences,” it added.

According to the SLTPB, the post-COVID-19 recovery campaign under #SLbloggers has travel influencers from countries such as the UK, USA, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, India and others, offering their support by endorsing and recommending Sri Lanka to their audiences as the most preferred destination to visit, for an exhilarating post-pandemic travel experiences. From February 2020 to August 2020, global travel influencers have created over 540 posts across popular social media platforms, reaching an audience of over six million. 

The estimated overall engagements counted 2,590,000, amounting to a total commercial value of Rs.30 million. Furthermore, the SLTPB has conceptualised a social media campaign that aims at showcasing Sri Lanka as a ‘Still Fun & Safe’ destination. The campaign that will carry the message – ‘It’s Still Fun & Safe to travel in Sri Lanka’ – is set to launch when the country announces the reopening for international tourists. It will be shared across all social media platforms, international travel influencers, digital media and industry stakeholders. 

The SLTPB also stated that plans are also underway to activate a “dedicated” content-driven influencer campaign that would target key source markets such as the UK, Europe and other crucial source markets, including Australia, India and the USA.