The Covid-19 pandemic has facilitated an unprecedented embrace of technology. Work and socialising (for the most part) went virtual. By and large, we realised that much of what we were used to doing physically could be worked around virtually, also discovering the importance of the physical and where it really mattered.
Travel is not one of those easily digitalised industries. Yes, from an administrative perspective, it can be handled remotely, but the act of travel itself – of visiting someplace new and experiencing something you haven’t experienced before – is not something that translates easily in a virtual context.
Travel has taken a huge beating globally with the pandemic. Sri Lanka Tourism, however, has used this adversity to innovate, launching a novel concept to promote Sri Lanka as an island.
“Go on a Couch Safari” is a digital programme that streams curated tours of Sri Lanka’s most popular national parks. With its first edition taking place from 4-13 November, Go on a Couch Safari will take viewers on tours of the Minneriya, Kaudulla, Udawalawe, and Yala National Parks.
The story behind ‘Go on a Couch Safari’
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairperson Kimarli Fernando explained that Go on a Couch Safari is a specific campaign designed to promote Sri Lanka on the global stage at a time when tourism is struggling.
“In the past, the emphasis was on attending trade shows, which is B2B (business-to-business). Due to Covid-19 and also the importance of reaching consumers B2C (business-to-consumer), we are implementing such initiatives as the ‘Go on a Couch Safari’ programme,” Fernando said.
The Go on a Couch Safari campaign has been very well received with 630,000 video views on Facebook, 100,000 views on YouTube, and a Facebook post reach of 3.5 million (a 15,000% increase) with over 73,000 likes (a 3,100% increase). “This is the highest reach Sri Lanka Tourism has ever had,” Fernando noted.
Go on a Couch Safari provides an inside look at Sri Lanka’s wildlife parks led by renowned Sri Lankan environmentalists and wildlife experts. Every year, hundreds of elephants gather at the manmade reservoirs inside Minneriya and Kaudulla National Parks in the dry season, creating a breathtaking sight. “Go on a Couch Safari” will attempt to capture this beautiful phenomenon on film, streaming the experience through the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) social media sites and an affiliated website.
Minneriya National Park is set to be the site of the first stream of the series. Minneriya is home to the first recorded twin wild elephants, which has become a sensation among wildlife enthusiasts the world over.
Other national parks being explored through the Go on a Couch Safari series include Yala National Park, popular for the highest density of leopards anywhere in the world, and Udawalawe National Park, best known for the terrestrial big five – Elephants, leopards, sloth bears and water buffalos, and mugger and saltwater crocodiles – as well as other species such as sambars, jackals, spotted deer, and peacocks that roam free in their natural habitats in the stunning backdrops of the sunset.
The Go on a Couch Safari series is expected to draw the attention of thousands of potential wildlife travellers to the country in the near future.
“Tourism is an industry that plays a critical role in the economy of Sri Lanka. We need to be ready to bounce back quickly once the time is right. We will be introducing several crowdsourcing initiatives to amplify the message. There are three ways through which anyone can get involved in this national promotional project. We also will be giving away holiday offers to win for overseas viewers,” said Fernando.
This is an opportunity to showcase the amazing biodiversity of the island while maintaining interest in Sri Lanka’s tourism across diverse groups.
Online safari experience: What can we expect?
A bold move on the part of Sri Lanka Tourism to garner and maintain interest in what Sri Lanka has to offer as a destination to travellers of all persuasions, Go on a Couch Safari takes a traditionally offline experience and makes it something that can be consumed in an online context. But what does this mean in terms of the experience itself?
“An online safari will not be as good as the real deal, that goes without saying,” shared Sensory Indulgences Co-Founder Brindley Wijeysooria, adding: “However, given the current situation, this is the closest people can get to the safari experience for now.”
Model and travel YouTuber Shenelle Rodrigo commented on Go on a Couch Safari noting that this kind of virtual experience had its own special perks to offer that the traditional safari experience lacks.
“While the experience is definitely not going to be the same as actually going and experiencing a safari yourself, the good thing is that it’s conducted by wildlife experts at the top of their respective fields,” Rodrigo said.
“So you get something that you won’t get even when you go on safari in real life; being guided and going on the journey with the experts, who are giving you valuable insight and backstory into the animals you are seeing.”
Wijeysooria, whose company Sensory Indulgences pioneered virtual experiences in the wake of the pandemic, also commented on the value of expertise provided by wildlife experts in a setting like Go on a Couch Safari, saying: “It’s better than National Geographic or Discovery Channel because viewers will have an interactive experience with their host.”
A sign that travel as a whole is going virtual?
With almost every industry feeling the push to virtual quite strongly, what does this mean for travel? Will online travel experiences become more popular in future, if not the norm?
Fernando shared that Go on a Couch Safari is not meant to replace the traditional safari in any way. “This initiative is to showcase Sri Lanka until we can welcome guests again. People will travel again. They want to experience these things themselves.”
In the long term, Go on a Couch Safari is intended to boost interest in the traditional safari experience. Centre for Conservation and Research Sri Lanka (CCRSL) Chairman Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando, who is one of the hosts of Go on a Couch Safari, said the virtual safari should provide viewers with a good idea of what to expect in real life.
“You basically have two or three people leading the safari and giving expert opinions. We actually do research in these parks and for our research purposes, we identify individual animals and follow them through time. We figure out their life stories and who they’re related to. This kind of combination of research findings and park visitation can provide a much more enriching visitation experience in the future.”
The virtual safari experience, and indeed the pandemic in general, is a respite for parks and wildlife to recover and grow with minimal interference from park visitors. However, Dr. Fernando warned that virtual safaris were not a viable long-term option to combat over-visitation in parks.
“Personally, I don’t think virtual safaris will work in the long term. Watching something on TV and seeing it with your own eyes is an entirely different experience. With regard to over-visitation in parks, I don’t think the solution is to decrease visitors. It is proper park management that is needed, with careful planning and proper guidelines. The issues are much more complex than simple visitor numbers. A lot of it is how people behave when they’re inside parks as well,” he explained.
Speaking about potential future travel trends, Rodrigo also shared that virtual travel wasn’t likely to overtake physical travel in the long term. “I definitely think that going forward, people will travel vicariously and content creators will have to contribute positively in helping this happen, whether it’s a professional TV channel or independent channels like mine. But in the long run, people will also want to experience things physically. Now is the perfect time for locals to travel and experience Sri Lanka without crowds and tourists.”
Putting Sri Lanka on the global map
The success of Go on a Couch Safari has helped position Sri Lanka favourably as a global destination amidst the pandemic.
“When we put ourselves online to the world, we are marketing ourselves to the future,” Now when people want to go to see wildlife, they go to Africa. But in Sri Lanka, you can see big cats in the national parks, and then after a five-hour journey later go whale-watching. We have it all. We’ve been missing a link with marketing, and things like ‘Go on a Couch Safari’ that put us out there are positive. I strongly believe that virtual experiences will help us get the word out there, and this is what we need,” Wijesooriya said.
SLTDA Chairman Fernando shared that positioning Sri Lanka globally is something Sri Lanka Tourism holds very dear. “Sri Lanka is all of what Asia has to offer in a small compact island. We will continue to showcase Sri Lanka and keep the dream alive. We’re planning to use the same brand name ‘Couch Safari’ and do whale and dolphin safaris next.”
Fernando asked the general public and all institutions – both public and private – to come together and support Sri Lanka Tourism and the Go on a Couch Safari campaign by sharing pre-event communication material published on social media, as well as sharing flyers and other material disseminated by Sri Lanka Tourism periodically with personal and business contacts living overseas as well as on their individual social media channels.
Go on a Couch Safari
The first edition of “Go on a Couch Safari” will take place from 4-13 November and take viewers on tours of Minneriya, Kaudulla, Udawalawe, and Yala National Parks.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/tourismsrilanka.gov.lk.
Photos: Krishan Kariyawasam
