Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:13
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Sri Lanka Tourism is planning to capture the Chinese market within the next few years and has targeted 60,000 Chinese tourists for 2013.
So far this year Chinese tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka are on a steady rise, with the country receiving 16,582 tourists during the first six months of this year, compared to 9,622 visitors received during the same period of last year. This is a 72.3% year-on-year growth.
Chinese tourists are quickly becoming the travel industry’s number one growth segment and according to the China National Tourism Administration, 37.9 million Chinese travelled abroad between January and May 2013, a growth of 17.3% from a year earlier.
With China being named a likely candidate to become the world’s largest economy by 2017 as predicted by the IMF, the outbound tourism market will also grow within the next few years. In an attempt to capture this market, Sri Lanka Tourism at present is vigorously promoting the country in the main Chinese markets under the guidance of the Economic Development ministry.
Accordingly, a series of promotional campaigns have been planned for this year and among them is a bus branding campaign in China, which will be held in various cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. A three-day mega joint promotional campaign is also on the cards.
WTO research has revealed that China led the rank of outbound tourist expenditure in 2012 with US$ 102 billion. The number of Chinese outbound tourists increased from 10 million in 2000 to 83 million in 2012. Meanwhile, overseas expenditure has increased by eight times, the report said.
