Designing a Customised Sri Lankan Tour Package for Finnish Travellers for Discover Serendib, a Sri Lankan Destination Management Company (DMC)

Abstract

A tour product is a significant element of a tourism organisation, as it facilitates tourists to experience the complete expectations of a tour. This study develops a customised tour product by analysing the demands of customers in a specific market. The chosen market is Finland, with Sri Lanka as the desired destination. Therefore, the study focuses on developing a customised tour product tailored to Finnish travellers visiting Sri Lanka. This tour product is designed as per the request of a DMC company name Discover Serendib, which is in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The demand, or in other words preferences of Finnish Travellers, were analysed using the qualitative method. This study has conducted interviews with ten Finnish tourists who travel internationally for leisure at least once a year. Some of the participants have not heard or known much about Sri Lanka. Therefore, Sri Lanka was introduced by sharing a brief video with the interviewees. The selected candidates are in the age group of 25-45. The interview guide was designed to serve the study purpose, and the collected data were analysed by using the thematic analysis method. The results were categorised into six themes as follows, travel motivation and preferences, budget and tour package expectations, accommodation and dining preferences, transportation preferences, activity interest and cultural engagement and customisation and flexibility in tour package. These themes help to identify the general preferences of Finnish travellers to consider when designing the customised tour package. These results support to provide recommendation to the company and build a basic prototype of the customised tour product for Finnish Travellers to visit Sri Lanka. The limitation of this study is that the sample size is small. The general idea was taken from a limited crowd to develop the customised Sri Lankan tour package. The results of this study presented in October 2024, therefore the recommendations and travel trends could be change over time. For Instance, political instability, inflation, health risks and environmental concerns could make the customised tour package less relevant over time.