Building The Destination Image for Post Covid Tourism Revival

Hosted in partnership with Sri Lanka Tourism, its official policy partner for the event, this online discussion brought together Kimarli Fernando, Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, alongside destination-branding specialists Damian Cook and John Bailey to tackle a problem specific to the pandemic moment: how does a destination rebuild a positive, trustworthy image for travellers when the entire concept of international travel had become fraught with health anxiety? Rather than treating destination marketing as a simple advertising exercise, the panel focused on what would actually need to change substantively — health screening and safety certification for hotels and attractions, transparent communication of protocols, and a rebuilt narrative around Sri Lanka’s outdoor, less-crowded natural attractions — before any marketing campaign could be credible to a nervous international traveller. This built directly on Advocata’s earlier April 2020 forum with Fernando, in which she had detailed the government’s cabinet-approved global promotion plan and plans for airport-based health screening and tracking, extending that early crisis-response thinking into a more considered strategy for how Sri Lanka’s tourism brand should be repositioned for a “revival” phase rather than simply crisis management.