The incapacitating and gruesome impact of Covid-19 on the tourism industry has been a cause for concern for industry stakeholders. The country was deprived of over four billion US Dollars in the year 2020 as a result of the ghastly effect of the pandemic. The livelihood of almost everybody involved in the industry in every capacity was left in the lurch.
The recovery of the world tourism industry eventually is certain. However, the time-line cannot be correctly predicted even with coronavirus vaccines introduced recently to control the infection. Hence, it is uncertain yet when the country will return to complete normalcy. In such a scenario, the promotion of domestic tourism that has not been given due attention by the authorities up to now at the national level is an extremely effective remedy. The local travel industry fraternity can sustain livelihood until everything comes back to normal.
Economic tool
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), domestic tourism accounted for 73% of total travel and tourism spending globally in 2018. Many countries use domestic tourism as a tool to reduce poverty, generate employment, generate income for people, and contribute to overall economic growth. Hence, amid the battle against Covid-19, domestic tourism may serve as a lifeline for industry stakeholders.
With the continuing pandemic threat still raging throughout the world, the health restrictions will be enforced perhaps till the danger completely settles down. Although the forecasts of the Sri Lankan leisure industry experts are entirely optimistic to predict that by late 2022 Sri Lanka will be at one of the top slots as a destination, the related businesses have to survive until then. Therefore, the industry has to concentrate on the domestic tourism market more than ever before.
Until the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 April, the local travel market was an ‘off-season’ target for tour operators. They have offered discounted special promotional packages to local travellers.
The strategy has been successful to keep the occupancy at a reasonable level during the off-season. However, after the Easter Sunday incident, the local leisure industry has mostly survived on domestic tourists, making them identify the domestic market segment as an important sector for the business.
The domestic tourism economy is lucrative in Sri Lanka boosted by the growing trend of domestic travel during long holidays. Holiday stays inside the country are a cost-effective and affordable option for individuals and families. Domestic tourism always is less hassle for travellers as they are familiar with the general terrain, generally minimal language barriers, and no currency problems or food differences.
The qualitative aspects such as knowledge of the socio-cultural environment, less congestion for travelers due to the availability of a wide variety of destinations, the cost-effectiveness of the land transport, and availability of larger numbers of interested travelers are some of the benefits of domestic tourism.
Nevertheless, a significant negative aspect of domestic tourism is that most often locals travel during long weekends. Domestic tourists rarely take holidays on weekdays, except perhaps during school holidays. As against traditional international tourists whose average travel itinerary is ten days, local travellers stay only a maximum of up to two to four days.
Young generation
The purpose of most domestic travellers is to be away from home in the comforts of a luxury or semi-luxury hotel with facilities such as swimming pools, buffets and restaurants. Many of them usually do not travel out of the hotels for sight-seeing. However, the young generation travellers move out of hotels to explore and experience sites around the area. The operators involved in adventure tourism benefit tremendously from the youth market segment.
The urban population in Sri Lanka as per the Department of Census and Statistics is over four million. Of this number, a considerable portion belongs to the middle and upper-middle-class classification of society.
This sector of the population can be a lucrative market segment for domestic tourism if an effective promotion can be done.
This segment, usually consisting of professionals, entrepreneurs and civil servants is often engaged heavily in their respective jobs. These usually busy people look forward to travelling out of their homes and relaxing in tourist destinations. Therefore, promoting domestic tourism to this segment with a dhigher social standing may draw impressive results for the industry.
Domestic MICE tourism is a segment that can have more opportunities locally. Currently, only large organisations concentrate on holding meetings, conferences, or exhibitions in hotels and other similar locations. International companies rarely hold meetings or conferences in Sri Lanka. Therefore, popularising more MICE tourism among local companies, particularly medium-sized organisations, can be lucrative to the industry.
Motivator
With the right price, entrepreneurs can be easily persuaded to have their annual events and training stints in hotels. It is known that the staff of organisations are not only fond of travelling out of their workplaces occasionally but also the move, without a doubt, is an effective motivator.
Domestic tourism is an important aspect of local economic development in respective destination regions.
The local economy is driven by the combined investment and expenditure of incoming visitors. They use their personal funds to purchase souvenirs, spend nights in local hotels, at restaurants in the area, and sometimes engage in leisure or sports activities. Each of these activities generates revenue for the locals in the area. Almost every community involved in the tourism industry, particularly the vendors who make a living out of tourists, invariably engage themselves with conscious enthusiasm. Almost all local authorities throughout the country currently are aware of the significance of promoting domestic tourism. They attempt to make the facilities and amenities in their areas better realising that the income generated through domestic tourism is essentially important to their constituents in this Covid-19 period.
Seasonal
Even in the absence of Covid-19, international tourism in most of the destinations can be seasonal. When the demand is low during the off-season periods, the infrastructures are usually unoccupied and the tourism fraternity struggles to find work.
Domestic tourism has provided a stabilising role for the tourism industry as the engagement is spread more evenly throughout the year. Therefore, local tourism makes a substantial contribution to the industry’s general financial stability and sustainability. The reality is that many of the businesses will survive on the year-round patronage of local tourists although they may be making more profits out of international tourism.
At a time when foreign tourists are keeping away due to the pandemic, domestic tourism is a successful solution to cushion the crisis and to keep destinations going until the situation returns to normal. At least those employed in tourism can earn a livelihood by catering to domestic tourists. Even when the crisis ends, domestic tourism can act as a different revenue earner, if creatively managed.
Domestic tourism not only increases destination value to the locals but also helps to develop the industry as a whole in the long run. Evidence on the contribution of domestic tourism for sustaining overall development and revenue generation is substantial. As Sri Lanka experienced on several recent occasions, particularly, during national crises where foreign tourists stay away, domestic tourism can act as a lifeline for stakeholders. Therefore, for all these reasons, domestic tourism must have long-term promotion plans at the national level, going beyond the existing short-term crisis management.