As part of the plans, Public Relation division at SLTPB are planning to bring down high profile journalists from key markets under their Visiting Journalists Program (VJP) increase global awareness on destination Sri Lanka.
Under this plan, the SLTPB, together with Korean Broadcasting Systems (KBS) and the Sri Lankan mission in Seoul, has taken the initiative of promoting Destination Sri Lanka in Republic of Korea by inviting a media team of one of their top rated travel programs in Korea called 'Everywhere K'.
SLTPB will be hosting the Korean media team during their 10-day Familiarization Tour program in Sri Lanka covering most of the highly regarded national attractions including Heritage & Cultural sites, Beauty of Nature in Highlands, Safari, Whale Watching and traditional local lifestyle in different part of the island.
The KBS media crew has planned to film a travel documentary about destination Sri Lanka which will be broadcast in Republic of Korea. Members of Sri Lanka Inbound Tour operators Association and the Hotel Association of Sri Lanka have also shown their fullest support to succeed with this promotional program.
With these promotional media familiarization activities, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) is focusing on getting access to strong South Korean outbound tourism market which numbered over 14 million tourist departures during the previous years. This is witnessing to the possibility of every one in four of the South Korean citizen having the financial capability of traveling abroad for their holiday. Identifying, the potential strength of this South Korean outbound tourism sector, SLTPB is targeting to receive 20,000 tourist arrivals from South Korea during the year 2016 surpassing the last year's 14,300 arrivals.
Over the recent years, South Korean tourism sector (both inbound/outbound) has gained a significant growth despite the high competition receiving from neighboring commercial giants such as Japan and China and growing doubtfulness of political stability mainly due to the threat from North Korea. During the previous year, per capita income showed USD 23,000 making the outbound tourism sector much stronger and that creates a greater opportunity for regional nations including Sri Lanka.
Large number of holiday trips made by South Koreans is mainly within the regional making the top 12 destinations are Asian nations except to United States. However, most of the elite South Korean frequent travelers still give their first choice to Europe as the possible holiday destination making around one million out of the total 14 million travelers. Sri Lanka will be seeing to position itself in the middle of potential high-end clientele from South Korea. As a colorful and compact tropical nation carrying a greater influence of Buddhists Culture, Sri Lanka has all the comfort and relaxation of a paradise to offer the South Korean tourists.
