Sri Lankan authorities make fresh push to woo Chinese tourists
Tourism authorities in Sri Lanka are to make a fresh push to woo Chinese tourists to the country by putting up a major promotional initiative in Beijing.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), along with local travels agents, hotels and service providers will participate at the 2019 edition of Beijing International Travel Expo (BITE), which kicks off today and continue till Thursday (20) at the China National Convention Centre.
BITE, which is the largest international travel exhibition in China, is reportedly an important exchange and trade platform for promoting the global tourism resources and products and stimulating tourism consumption.
The expo features comprehensive multi-field exhibition projects such as tourism investment and finance, tourism real estate, tourism commodities, special towns, tourism, intelligent tourism, sports tourism, medical tourism, outdoor tourism, RV camping tourism and much more.
The Sri Lankan pavilion at the BITE will be declared open by Sri Lanka’s Tourism Development Minister John Amaratunga along with other officials from the Ministry and SLTPB today.
“Around 15 local travel agents, hotels and service providers will participate at the three-day expo in Beijing to have business to business (B2B) meetings with their counterparts representing over 100 countries in the world,” SLTPB Chairman Kishu Gomes has been quoted as saying by the Daily FT.
He has noted that they hope to focus on business meetings, exclusive media interviews and destination promotion presentations during the first two days of the event and engage with the consumers on the final day.
“SLTPB is keen to make maximum out of this opportunity to build the image of Sri Lanka and engage with a large segment of travel stakeholders,” Gomes has added.
China is Sri Lanka’s second largest source market which drew 265,965 tourists last year. China has over 150 million outbound tourists, increasing 14% year-on-year.
OSL take:
Tourism authorities in Sri Lanka are engaged in special promotions targeting the Indian and Chinese tourist markets. Indian and Chinese tourists have started to return to Sri Lanka. India’s national carrier has already announced resumption of flights between New Delhi and Colombo. Given all these developments, it is evident that Sri Lanka’s tourism sector is heading for a quick revival following the Easter Sunday attacks. Foreign businesses/investors could therefore explore business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism sector.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/19062019/Z_8 |