IMPACT OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION ON UAE TOURIST’S PROPENSITY TO VISIT SRI LANKA

Abstract

Tourism industry has become a vital industry to the Sri Lankan economy. Sri Lanka should focus on attracting high spending tourists in order to gain more economic benefits to the country. United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become one of the fastest growing tourists generating markets in the world. Emirati’s are spenders with a higher spending capacity. Many UAE tourists are been attracted by Maldives, Singapore, Malaysia & Thailand with a good number of arrivals. But as a destination Sri Lanka has not been able to achieve a reasonable market share of these tourists who could generate a higher value of tourist receipts. This study is focused to analyze the impact of Marketing Communication on UAE tourists’ arrivals into Sri Lanka and to provide necessary recommendations with appropriate strategies to develop UAE as a source market for inbound tourism. The researchers have used samples of 100 potential UAE tourists through a structured questionnaire. It was noticed that there is a considerable continuous drop in the UAE arrivals into Sri Lanka. Though the perception of Emirati’s about the destination is positive due to the unproductive marketing and promotional activities and methods they are not induced to visit Sri Lanka. Hence the tourism authorities and private sector should collaborate and implement suitable marketing and promotional activities to attract these potential tourists to the destination.