- A chat with Kamal Munasinghe and Savithri Rodrigo on World Tourism Day and the immediate future of SL tourism
By Naveed Rozais
As we all know, Sri Lanka’s tourism has been put through the mill these past few years. Starting from the prime ministerial musical chairs in October 2018 to the 2019 Easter attacks, the pandemic, and now our political and economic crisis, each moment the tourism industry had room for some hope, events have conspired against it.
Nevertheless, as we approach World Tourism Day on 27 September and the upcoming festive season (which is also one of Sri Lanka’s peak tourism seasons), the tourism industry once more finds itself in a position of quiet hope. The pandemic, while still a concern, is not as critical as it once was, and while our economic crisis is still very much unfolding, there is a relative political stability forming – travel advisories are being revised and Sri Lanka is ready to welcome travellers.
But is it enough for Sri Lanka’s tourism to just be ready to receive travellers? This was what formed the basis of our chat with Cinnamon City Hotels Area Vice President Kamal Munasinghe and ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ Host, Director, and Co-Producer Savithri Rodrigo – the opportunity that World Tourism Day gives us to consider what kind of big picture thinking tourism needs right now.
Marking World Tourism Day
Cinnamon City Hotels (Cinnamon’s key city properties – the Cinnamon Grand, the Cinnamon Lakeside, and the Cinnamon Red) is marking 2022’s World Tourism Day through an insightful partnership with Rodrigo’s digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope’.
Taking shape in the form of a curated panel discussion on 27 September at Nuga Gama – Colombo’s Sri Lankan village-inspired restaurant experience (‘village in the city’) in the Cinnamon Grand, the panel, moderated by Rodrigo, sees the expertise of different hospitality experience providers putting their minds together to envisage the future of Sri Lankan tourism, focusing mainly on urban tourism – Munasinghe himself, Colombo City Restaurant Collective President Harpo Gooneratne, Malabar Hill General Manager Sanjiva Gautamadasa, Cafe Kumbuk Co-Founder Dinali Dandeniya, RETRACE Hospitality Founder Chalana Perera, Theva Residency Kandy Managing Director Dheeshana Ameresekere, and Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts QA, Health and Safety, Sustainability, and CSR Vice President Shanez Wijesinghe.
“Taking place under the theme ‘Change is Us!’ the panel is a talking point for issues that face tourism, and one of these issues is whether we, despite having a superb tourism product, are going in the right direction,” Rodrigo shared.
“We don’t realise what a great product we have, and the thought process behind this discussion falls in line with rethinking, regenerating, and strategising. The traveller has changed completely post-pandemic. Are we still relevant? How do we make ourselves relevant?”
This train of thought was something that Munasinghe stressed was vital for Sri Lankan tourism – one of the world’s largest industries which saw global disruption and transformation brought about by the pandemic.
“Rethinking is not easy because the pandemic affected the whole world. It’s more difficult for Sri Lanka because its problems started before the pandemic and continue beyond it, but we must focus on positives more than negatives and start thinking in a completely different way about the future,” Munasinghe explained.
“The best time to have this kind of discussion is around World Tourism Day, and Cinnamon City Hotels has partnered with Savithri’s platform to get this message out and hear from industry experts on how we can and should be rethinking tourism. It is of immense value to all tourism stakeholders.”
The panel has been curated by Rodrigo, her Co-Producer Prishan Pandithage, and Cinnamon City Hotels to capture the diversity of Sri Lankan hospitality to provide a well-rounded voice on what we need to consider when rethinking how Sri Lankan tourism can differentiate itself on the global stage, from tourism youngblood to heritage properties to food experiences.
The panel will cover a variety of themes including the role legacy brands play in tourism, what stakeholders are doing to regenerate tourism and how effective these actions are, what priorities the sector needs to focus on, and how ready the industry is for real change.
The bigger picture of Sri Lankan tourism
What should the future of tourism look like? For Munasinghe, it was all about strengthening the Sri Lankan experience, refining what we had to offer, and developing the infrastructure to give travellers a truly memorable experience of Sri Lanka long before they could even land on our shores.
This means optimising visa processes, making sure the right information is out there – although travel advisories have now been relaxed, the fact that these relaxations have taken place needs to be effectively communicated – and creating the best possible experience on arrival in Sri Lanka, from getting through customs to getting transport to destinations within Sri Lanka.
Developing this kind of infrastructure is not something the tourism sector can do alone – it requires the collaborative working of many different industries and the State. “All these segments have to work together to map the experience for travellers to arrive and develop the right infrastructure,” Munasinghe said. Then what follows is the traveller experience within the country, and in the case of Cinnamon City Hotels, this is something that is always being re-evaluated and improved.
Also, key to rethinking tourism is recognising the diverse things Sri Lankan tourism has to offer and capitalising on this diversity as opposed to marketing the country as simply a powerful one-stop destination. Sri Lanka has so much more to offer beyond history, sun, sea, and sand. There is religious tourism, wellness tourism, adventure tourism, sports tourism, and wildlife tourism and these should be given the potential to shine in their own rights as opposed to a one-size-fits-all destination.
“The historical sun-sea-sand approach to attracting tourists is not going to work anymore. Digitally, people have enough information at their fingertips and Sri Lanka as a destination is not on top-of-mind recall, and this is why we need to rethink how relevant we are and how to make ourselves more relevant and resilient,” Rodrigo said.
Rodrigo also spoke about the need for inclusion within the industry. Sri Lankan tourism is currently dealing with a huge brain drain. The challenges of the last few years have seen a huge amount of tourism professionals seek opportunities overseas. There is a talent gap forming locally because of this and greater inclusion of women and persons with disabilities (with the correct social and business systems to appropriately empower them) can help bridge this gap and help Sri Lankan tourism stand apart.
A new hope
The upcoming season is one filled with hope, and Cinnamon City Hotels has seized the opportunity to build experiences that provide value in an uncertain time. That said, the next few months are something of a make-or-break period for tourism.
One key challenge across the industry will be the talent shortage: “The outlook is hopeful, but there is a lot of work to be done in terms of getting the word out to our key source markets and rebuilding confidence, but one of our biggest challenges will be manpower and HR. To provide a quality product we need manpower. People have been leaving the hotel industry to work overseas, and this is not a bad thing because they are generating foreign income for the country, but as an industry, tourism needs to rethink how we find and nurture talent,” Munasinghe said.
Cinnamon City Hotels has created powerful experiences for the next few months to reinspire travellers as well as domestic clients. “Oktoberfest begins on 29 September at the Cinnamon Lakeside, Colombo. We’ve also refurbished and relaunched several of our restaurant concepts,” Munasinghe said.
“Last week saw the relaunch of our speakeasy cocktail bar Sequel at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo and we also extensively restored our Nuga Gama restaurant. We’re also adding value to our other food and beverage experiences. When travellers start coming in, they will be looking for these kinds of experiences.”
Oktoberfest will also be celebrated by the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo in partnership with the Lion Brewery with the event going offsite to take place at the Port City, a larger venue that will allow for a stronger experience. Cinnamon City Hotels will also be weaving music into the Oktoberfest experience, working with the Western Musicians’ Association on a line-up of bands and solo performers including some German artists to build a more powerful atmosphere for the occasion.
Ahead of the festive season, Cinnamon City Hotels has various events and experiences taking place across their properties, beginning from Thanksgiving and extending beyond the New Year into January 2023.
“We at Cinnamon City Hotels have geared up for the upcoming season with product enhancements as well as with our talent development to create the best possible immersive experience for all our guests,” Munasinghe said, adding that he was confident that this season would prove to be the first of many turning points for Sri Lankan tourism after years of struggle.
Tourism at the heart of Sri Lankan identity
It’s no secret that tourism is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest industries, not just because of the big hotels and properties, but because of the small hotels, the family businesses, and the host of associated livelihoods that it supports.
A Sri Lanka without tourism would be unrecognisable, which is why conversations about its future are vital.
In Rodrigo’s words, “Each and every citizen of this country is a stakeholder of tourism, but we don’t think of ourselves as stakeholders and expect others like the hotels, the private sector, and the State to take charge. But we are all stakeholders, and each one of us needs to do our part.”