{"id":91627,"date":"2019-07-21T16:56:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T23:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91627"},"modified":"2019-07-21T16:56:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T23:56:07","slug":"how-to-attract-more-chinese-tourists-to-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/21\/how-to-attract-more-chinese-tourists-to-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Attract More Chinese Tourists to Sri Lanka?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Before being nominated as the Chinese Ambassador to\nSri Lanka and arriving at the country to assume my office, I could hardly imagine\nthat there are so many world wonders on this tropical island of over 60,000 square\nkilometers. The graceful\nlake and mountains of Kandy, the quaint and ancient city of Galle, the gorgeous and colorful Colombo, and the breathtaking thrills of\nLion Rock are all amazing and stunning. Many Chinese tourists have been attracted to these beautiful sceneries with pleasant surprise like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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qrf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With\nthe strong support and promotion of the Sri Lankan government as well as the Chinese\nEmbassy in Sri Lanka, the number of Chinese tourists to Sri Lanka has reached\nnearly 300,000 annually<\/a>\nand ranks the top among foreign tourists to Sri Lanka. However, this number is only\na peanut while comparing with the number of Chinese tourists attracted by Thailand,\nwhich is also a neighbor of China. In 2018, Chinese tourists to Thailand have\nexceeded 10 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasons mainly\ninclude following aspects. Firstly is language barrier. Many Chinese\ntourists are not accustomed to English language, much less the Sinhalese or Tamil language.\nChinese-speaking tour guides\u2019 accompany and interpretation is a must for them. But there are very few Chinese-speaking local guides here,\nand Chinese guides are prohibited\nfrom entering Sri\nlanka and accompanying with tourists. Besides, Chinese people always have Chinese stomach\u201d when traveling. They show strong preference to Chinese food. However, it is difficult for a Chinese chef to obtain a working visa to work in or set up a Chinese\nrestaurant. Therefore, the number of Chinese restaurants in Sri Lanka is\nlimited and sometimes cannot meet needs of Chinese tourists. In addition, a large percentage of Chinese tourists\nare accustomed to Chinese tobacco and alcohol, which is a reality that the tourism\nindustries in Sri Lanka has to consider seriously, although it is not healthy\nat all and should not be encouraged. The tourists cannot buy Chinese tobacco and alcohol\nduring their stay, and even not allowed to bring a few\nChinese cigarettes with\nthem for\ntheir personal own use when entering this island. These restrictions make Chinese\ntourists unaccustomed, which don\u2019t exist or at least have some level of exemption or\ntolerance in many other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, conveniences, experiences and\nhappiness are precisely what Chinese tourists most care about, and one of the\nkey factors in their decision-making of travel destinations. I noticed that the Tourism Authority of Thailand emphasized in an interview that the\npromotion of the Chinese market in 2019 will focus on increasing convenience\nand happiness, hoping all Chinese friends in Thailand would enjoy high-quality\nexperience. China is the world’s largest source of tourists with large scale of\noutbound tourists and ranks No.1 in overseas consumption in the world for many\nyears. The size of China’s tourism market is too huge to imagine and compare by\nmany other countries. The growth of related industries such as aviation,\nhotels, transportation and catering promoted by the tourism industry is also\nconsiderable. At present, the Sino-Sri Lanka relations has stepped into a\nfast development period. The implementation of Belt and Road Initiative\nbetween the two countries\nis in full swing, the exchanges in various fields are increasingly frequent,\nand the prospect for Sino-Sri Lanka tourism cooperation is also promising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\nfully confident that if Sri Lanka could continuously improve the tourism\nenvironment, focus on improving the comfort of foreign tourists as much as\nThailand, adjust relevant regulations in accordance with Sri Lankan laws, ease\nthe existing obstacles for foreign tourists effectively, more and more Chinese\ntourists will be attracted to Sri Lanka, which will stimulate tourism, consumption\nand stronger vitality to local economy growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan Before being nominated as the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka and arriving at the country to assume my office, I could hardly imagine that there are so many world wonders on this tropical island of over 60,000 square kilometers. The graceful lake and mountains of Kandy, the quaint and ancient city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}