Now Sell the Buddhist Trail
New air connection could open valuable East Asian tourism corridor – but passenger numbers, nights and dollars will determine whether it succeeds
COLOMBO – Sri Lanka is preparing to open a potentially important new tourism corridor tomorrow with the commencement of direct air connectivity between Vietnam and Colombo alongside a new “Buddha Wandana” Buddhist-trail tourism initiative.
There will inevitably be ceremonies, speeches and photographs.
The more important question comes afterwards.
Will it bring tourists – and tourism dollars – to Sri Lanka?
Vietnam gives Sri Lanka access to a substantial East Asian market while the Buddhist-trail concept offers something the country possesses in abundance but has arguably never marketed internationally to its full potential: more than two millennia of living Buddhist heritage.
Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kandy and numerous other religious and archaeological sites provide the foundations for a specialist pilgrimage product capable of attracting visitors whose journeys are driven by faith, history and culture rather than the traditional beach-and-resort proposition.
Direct connectivity matters because accessibility remains one of the basic ingredients of tourism growth.
Sri Lanka has long discussed diversifying its tourism markets. A direct Vietnam connection provides an opportunity to test whether that ambition can be converted into actual arrivals. But the success of the initiative should not ultimately be measured by the number of inaugural-flight photographs or memoranda signed.
It should be measured in numbers.
How many additional Vietnamese visitors arrive? How long do they stay? How much do they spend? And how much foreign exchange does the new market generate?
Those figures will tell the real story.
Sri Lanka’s Buddhist heritage is already here.
The challenge now is to package it, connect it and sell it.
NEWSLINE WATCH
The Tourism Ministry should publish measurable targets for the Vietnam initiative – visitor numbers, average stay and average spend – and report progress against them.
Otherwise, another promising air route risks remaining precisely that:
A route rather than an economic corridor.
