http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Let_the_world_see_what_we_witness_in_Colombo_20121203_09

Let the world see what we witness in Colombo

(By: Prasad Peiris)

If someone visits Colombo, for the first time since the end of the war, I am sure that he might stumble upon the sight of a beautiful city. Surely he would not believe what he sees with his naked eyes. Wider clean roads, open offices, walkways, water bodies' refurbished old buildings depicting the same ancient pride, would definitely create a pleasant feeling for any visitor.

Not only the city of Colombo, other major cities like Gampaha and Kandy are also being rapidly transformed into amazing cities. This transformation was much significant after bringing the subject of urban development under the purview of Ministry of Defence. The contribution made by war heroes has made the city beautification drive an aggressive one.

We witness a number of major projects which are turning the face of Colombo to something very pleasant and alluring. Apart from the key aspiration of making the city pleasant for city commuters, the government has envisioned to leverage these beautification drives in achieving other strategic development goals too. For example, it is expected to achieve 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016. In addition, investment promotion and many other national goals are incorporated with an appealing city.

We have a set of development goals in the aftermath of the deadly war. In achieving these goals, we have embarked on number of mega projects aggressively. Is it enough? Does it secure the set targets?

This note is to highlight the need for a strategic approach to promote these beautification drives to the rest of the world to reap the benefits of these investments in an accelerated manner. In the case of tourism, can we achieve the annual target of 2.5 million tourist arrivals by embarking on tourism development projects coupled with the traditional promotional drive?

Emerging digital technologies

In achieving these targets we are to convince donors, political leaders, investors, tourists and many other stake holders around the globe. Many of these stake holders are from the developed western world and emerging Asian, African and South American nations.

During the recent years communication and promotional media of these nations have been revolutionized along with new telecommunication and ICT technologies. The effect of the traditional media such as paper based publications, television and radio are taking the backseat with these emerging digital trends. These emerging digital technologies offer high level of collaboration and user engagement techniques.

Electronically sharing digital content among friends through email, and the social networks makes users to collaborate. As an example potential tourists might share an image or a video of interested tour destinations among like-minded friends.

Novel technologies such as broadband, interactive online media and social media have become more appealing due to their inter-activity. These mediums offer more and more user engagement allowing delivery of feelings better than never before. One can convey ecodiversity of a proposed investment site by way of virtual tour or interactive panorama which delivers the auditory and visual ambiance of the location.

While delivering sophisticated collaboration and engagement features the latest digital media enables advertisers to strategically target identified niche audiences. Traditionally advertisers had limited control over their targeted audiences. In contrast social media paves a way to have presence in users' space to target individual users for promotional purposes.

We should posses a sound knowledge about our targeted audiences to come up with proper digital strategy. Developed and emerging nations are always in the frontline in terms of communication technologies and technological devices. Technology convergence has offered people in those countries to access multiple communication media through smart phones and tablet PC type ubiquitous devices. Therefore there is an amazing window of opportunity to embark on sophisticated promotional strategies coupled with rich digital content.

How are we going to reach our audiences to promote the aggressive beautification drives? Are we going to stick into our old guns like magazine based advertisements, TV commercials etc.?

Beauty is something which needs more sophisticated methods to deliver it, since it attaches with more and more with the senses. Since it is challenging to deliver but easy to experience, we need to explore ways and means of letting the user to feel or experience the beauty. This writer suggests embarking on new digital promotional strategies to deliver user experiences of the new facelifts of the country. He suggests tri-fold approach covering new digital content over specific media for targeted markets for promotion of the beautification.

New digital contents such as interactive panoramas, virtual tours and low bandwidth high definition video are some of the contents which can effectively deliver a user experience. Social media platforms, mobile applications, streaming media platforms, high definition broadband TV are some of the new digital media. Delivering right content over right media to an identified market should be strategically decided to reach the maximum benefit. Hence, the writer highlights the need for new digital strategy to promote the new outlook of this refreshing island.

Negative image

No sooner Sri Lanka triumphed over the separatists' war some elements of the International and local community embarked on war related negative propaganda and such propaganda has been able to present a negative image of the island across the globe. Instead of embarking on offensive propaganda drives, if we can let the world to experience the beauty of peace, the effect of the damaging propaganda could easily be diluted.

(The writer, Prasad Peiris, is a budding entrepreneur and strategic consultant. He started his career as a telecommunication engineer. Confining his thoughts on new digital promotional strategies he has developed an interactive digital multimedia investment promotional content for Sri Lanka Tourism, which is expected to promote the new strategic investment sites in Sri Lanka amongst the investors around the world. Prasad Peiris BSc(Eng) MBA is the Founder and the Managing Director of Vizu (Private) Limited (www.vizu.lk), which was established with the help of a Industry Innovation Promotion Grant received from the Government of Sri Lanka through Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). He can be reached at prasad_peiris@yahoo.com.)