Sri Lanka Tourism has condemned and disassociated itself from what it called a ``culturally offensive’’ image published last week in a state controlled newspaper which the tourism agency refrained from identifying and said the image concerned was not from material produced or developed by the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.

``Sri Lanka Tourism disassociates itself with the image published by the newspaper and expresses strong concerns over the use of this form of imagery, which is culturally offensive not only to Buddhists but also to people of other religions,’’ SLT said in a news release.

It explained that Sri Lanka Tourism officially launched its new brand identity ‘Small Miracle’ recently with the aim of boosting the country’s tourism industry. The campaign is designed to showcase the rich and diverse offerings of the island nation, while preserving the virtues and the value of its people.

However an article in a leading English newspaper on the 26th of June 2009 published a culturally offensive image along with a story titled "Miracles do happen in Sri Lanka", subsequent to the launch media conference of ‘Small Miracle’. This could lead to the belief that this image is in fact a promotional material designed and developed on behalf of Sri Lanka Tourism’s ‘Small Miracle’ campaign.

Sri Lanka Tourism categorically states that the image used in the above mentioned article is not a material produced or approved by Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau for its promotional campaign. For reasons best known to the writer of the article, this image was obtained irresponsibly from a personal blog site and not through a credible source. Had there been a need for supporting images associated with the campaign, such images should have been ideally sourced only through Sri Lanka Tourism.

Months prior to the launch of the new brand identity, Sri Lanka Tourism obtained the blessings of the Maha Sanga advisory council of the Ministry of Tourism in Anuradhapura after presenting the campaign’s vision and proposed promotional material.

The new brand identity is an integral part of the repositioning strategy of Sri Lanka Tourism, and comes at an opportune time with the dawning of a new era of peace in Sri Lanka, where there are much expectations and opportunities in the tourism industry.