Sri Lankan tourist authorities should attract high-end Chinese tourists into Sri Lanka to reap real benefits to the country foreign exchange wise, said Consulate General of Sri Lanka in Shanghai Hasanthi Dissanayake.

“China is a highly potential market for Sri Lanka in terms of trade investment and tourism because Sri Lanka is becoming an emerging destination for Chinese tourists. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to promote best things from Sri Lanka as it will obviously help to market them easily,” Dissanayake told Daily News Business at a meeting held in Shanghai with several Sri Lankan media personnel touring China on an invitation extended by SriLankan Airlines as a familiarization tour.

She said that Chinese tourists are now high spenders and if Sri Lankan tourism authorities focus and attract top end Chinese tourists it would definitely help to improve the revenue out of the tourism sector.

She said total tourists arrivals to Sri Lanka from China last year had exceeded the 60,000 mark and from Shanghai areas alone more than 25,000 visited Sri Lanka.

However, this year statistics reveal that more than 60,000 Chinese tourists had arrived in Sri Lanka during the first six months of the year. This was due to robust promotions under taken by Sri Lanka Tourism and SriLankan Airlines to increase the number of Chinese tourist arrivals into the country. Due to these aggressive promotions this number would double compared to last year, she said. Dissanayake said that Sri Lanka now focus on developing the manufacturing and agriculture sector targeting the huge Chinese market to bridge the trade gap.

She also said SriLankan Airlines being the national carrier was playing an important role to direct flights to several Chinese destinations. This would help to attract more tourists into the country in a big way, she added.

A Sri Lanka Embassy spokesman said that Sri Lanka is going to be a preferred destination among Chinese and their number has been increased significantly during the recent past. The spokesman also said that the Chinese middle-income category is growing rapidly therefore, with aggressive promotions the number of tourists arrivals to Sri Lanka will increase by many folds.

SriLankan Airlines has really helped to increase this number as they are constantly increasing their direct and charter flights to China, the spokesman added.

SriLankan Airlines to meet the increasing demand of air services between China and Sri Lanka operates a total of 15 weekly flights to Beijing Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong apart from their Charter flights. With this initiative UL will be making its presence in the other parts if the China as well, SriLankan Airlines CEO Kapila Chandrasena told the media recently.