Many countries are reopening their borders to international travellers by lifting the travel restrictions, after more than a year of lockdowns due to COVID-19. Vaccines have given cause of optimism for travelling. Knowing the importance of tourism driven sustainable economic development, Sri Lanka Tourism has relaxed the travel restrictions for International Tourists from 1st of October 2021.

In relations to the post-COVID related destination promotions, Sri Lanka Tourism’s International Media & Influencer Facilitation Program (VJP &VBP) which is under the PR Division, already started to collaborate with some of the most talented international travel influencers and travel journalists. With these influencer promotions, Sri Lanka Tourism expects focus on :

• Experiencing Travel Relaxation by Sri Lanka Tourism (entering to Sri Lanka) and our Great Accommodation sector with Ayurveda / Wild / Nature / Beach Relaxation
• How welcoming Sri Lankan’s are and how normal the life with safe and secure measurements setup by the government
• Reasons to consider lesser known fresh regions such as Northern Sri Lanka, Sabargamuwa, Central highlands for next holiday

In the month of October, ten (10) high profile journalists and travel influencers were invited to Sri Lanka from Norway, India and Philippines. The media & travel influencer team has an active audience covering UK, Norway, Germany, USA, UAE, Australia, Canada, Philippines, India. Combine reach of this promotion expect to be over 5 million (viewers & readers in both online /offline) globally and the advertising value equal to be over 23 million Sri Lanka Youtube based social media kicked started from October (from 15 th October to 6 th November) to highlight and pinpoint Sri Lanka’s lesser known tourism experience in order to lure the enthusiastic travellers to have the vacation of their choice. The Norwegian based influencers (Martin Solhaugen : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGKwnJYiAAg&t=5s /Ave : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWKgZfxeLsw) have been further commissioned by the famous DW Germany TV channel (Deutsche Welle) to produce a travel vlog about Sri Lanka for their Travel YouTube channel. DW is a German public state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 30 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Urdu, Hindi, Spanish, Bengali, and Arabic. Overall, this promotion will be covering Matale , Kegalle , Kandy , Hatton, Mahiyahnganaya and Southern Coastal line by covering various tourism products ‘’Hel Vedakam’’, adventure travel, luxury travel , community based tourism, nature and eco-tourism, Indigenous Vedda Community, and promoting less known Sri Lanka .

Experiencing local village culture in Malate District

Creating content about Sri Lankan Laksha at Hapuvida Village , Matale District