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| Sunday, 12 June 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Promoting post-tsunami Sri Lanka by Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne The writer proposes a few simple changes for a more enlightened media policy to harness the power of foreign television crews to promote Sri Lanka.
We did not harness the foreign media show our magnificent cultural sites and our parks and reserves teeming with wildlife and to demonstrate that they were all intact. Ideally, the hotels, where many of these crews were staying should have organised or suggested a filming visit, to important cultural sites such as Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa or Kandy. But spontaneous filming visits are not possible as permits have to be arranged in advance from the Central Cultural Fund (CCF). Likewise, spontaneous foreign film crew visits to a rainforest like Sinharaja or a national park like Uda Walawe or Yala, was not possible. They require permits in advance from the Forest Department (FD) or the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWLC). Unfortunately, these permits can take anything from a few days to a few weeks to organise. Our failure continues with us by not being able, even several months later, to effectively communicate the message that much of the island is un-touched and is ready for tourism. In the last week of April 2005, I had a conversation with Nocolas Denbigh, a Senior Product Manager of Manos, one of the major tour operators in the UK. She told me that one reason why Sri Lankan tourism failed to recover as rapidly as the Maldives was because they only see negative footage of Sri Lanka. I suspect this is because we unwittingly place more obstructions for filming positive footage. A simple, concrete example had arisen only a few weeks earlier in early April. I was invited to join a film crew from BBC's Fast Track program, for a shoot in Yala National Park. The permits had been arranged before hand as was required. The program reaches an audience estimated at up to a billion people in two hundred countries. Having completed their filming, the film crew found themselves with a day in hand in Colombo on a Sunday. It would have been ideal to throw in another visit to a national park such as Bundala or Uda Walawe, or a forest reserve like Sinharaja or a cultural site like Kandy or Anuradhapura or Polonnaruwa. But none of these were possible without a film permit inadvance from the applicable government department such as the DWLC, FD, or the CCF. The policy of not having a simple procedure for issuing professional film permits at the entrance, blocks publicity which could otherwise have been had. A pity because many foreign film crews such as the BBC Fast Track film crew do not need any special privileges. They would have sat at the back of a jeep or walked on public paths and filmed just as any other visitor to a national park or cultural site would have done. The FD, DWLC, CCF, etc are conspicuous for lack of money to engage in any promotional activities locally or internationally. Here was an opportunity to reach an audience of a billion people, something which they cannot buy from paid advertising. Yet neither of them could take advantage of it. They failed the country and its people. They collect a few thousand dollars by issuing film permits through laborious 'prior arrangement' procedures but miss the big prize by losing out on millions of dollars of free advertising. A simple procedure whereby the crew would have been allowed to film by paying a daily film permit at the point of entry would have collected the same film permit fees, but allowed Sri Lanka to capitalise on an opportunity. A number of un-satisfactory reasons are offered for the onerous, over-done control mentality which deprives Sri Lanka of positive, international television coverage. The first is a desire to keep tabs on who comes and films what, in case something negative is filmed. This is a silly argument. No mischief maker is likely to apply for a film permit. No one who wishes to portrait Sri Lanka as a haven for child prostitution, or publicize human rights violations or portray Colombo as a garbage strewn city, will come through official channels. People with such an agenda will fly in as tourists and use fairly small cameras. Perhaps one in so many camera crews will give us negative publicity. But this is not a justification for obstructing the rest of the crews who can give us good publicity. During the Tsunami there were no controls on filming rotting corpses. But controls applied on filming Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa, Sinharaja, Yala, etc. How perverse. We do not ban cars from the road because people die in road accidents, but the fear of negative publicity from a few film crews prompts us to stifle good publicity from the others. Another defence put forward is that other countries also have onerous procedures for film crews. Maybe, but that is not a reason for us to put obstacles in the way of our economic growth and raising our positive profile.The perceived risk from the film crews in our cultural sites and national parks and reserves is over blown. A camera crew entering a national park would be subject to the supervision of a tracker. A camera crew in Sigiriya or Polonnaruwa will not be able to do anything harmful as official personnel are around. Most of the time, if at all, the damage they can do is make some negative observations. But if so, an appropriate response would be to address the underlying issue than stifle our opportunities for international publicity. Another irrational reason offered is that film crews make money. Of course they do, like anyone else who is doing a job. It is in Sri Lanka's interest that foreign film crews make money by shooting the beauty of Sri Lanka. This will encourage them to film here perhaps more than once, increasing the positive exposure we receive. Viewed critically, there is no rational reason to do anything other than streamline the procedure for film crews who do not require special privileges. A country to which tourism is so important, would look to seize the advantage of every opportunity for positive television coverage overseas. At present, we only look to obstruct positive coverage, blinded by ill judgment, irrational envy and simple stupidity. I would propose that where a foreign film crew requires no special privileges over and above what a casual visitor is entitled to, that they be allowed to purchase film permits at the point of entry at archaeological sites and national parks and reserves. This will allow Sri Lanka to benefit from foreign television coverage reaching hundreds of millions of people, world-wide. Imagine you are the Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board or the Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism. At a cocktail, on a Saturday evening you meet a foreign film crew who have spent the last few days filming news stories which included an interview with a spokesperson of the LTTE, the tented refugee camps which remain after the civil war and the tsunami and a story on drugs and prostitution, or and Colombo's decline into a city of garbage. You would like to suggest that they spend the Sunday filming in Sigiriya, Sinharaja or Uda Walawe. But they cannot. The present policies of the DWLC, FD, CCF, etc for a film permit by prior arrangement will not allow it. Something is wrong. I rest my case.
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| Produced by Lake House |
During
the Tsunami over a hundred television crews were in Sri Lanka. They created
an image of a country devastated by the Tsunami, an island where the sea had
swept in from the East coast and flowed over the West. Sri Lanka failed to
use the world's biggest media event to show a positive aspect of herself.
