Official pledges substantial rise in tourists from three Chinese cities

Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD) Secretary General Zhu Rui, who was the architect and driving force behind the visiting tourism and related investment promotion mission from Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, gave an assurance in the presence of Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion Faiszer Mustapha that there would be a minimum of 30,000 additional tourists in three years’ time.    

The CPAPD and its Sri Lankan partner organisation, the Pathfinder Foundation (PF), collaborated in this venture as a means of giving effect to the implementation of the Cooperation Memorandum signed between the two organisations in July 2012.

Deputy Minister Mustapha addressing the delegation, consisting of tour operators, a travel writer and prospective investors in hotels and restaurants, elaborated upon the investment opportunities in the sector. He emphasised the need for additional hotel rooms, restaurants as well as other entertainment facilities to accommodate Sri Lanka’s target of 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016. He also promoted Sri Lanka as a very attractive destination for Chinese tourists, drawing upon the centuries-old cultural, religious and commercial relations between the two countries.

In response to the Deputy Minister, Zhu emphasised the tourism potential in the fast growing cities of the Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou. Zhu declared that the members of the delegation were confident that there would be a substantial increase of Chinese visitors to Sri Lanka in the coming years from these cities alone. Some of these tourists will include Sri Lanka as an additional destination while visiting Dubai, Maldives and Thailand.

He further said that agriculture based (tea plantations) and other eco tourism ventures would be very attractive to Chinese tourists. In addition to conventional tourism promotion techniques, Zhu suggested that Sri Lanka and Chinese partners should explore novel and out-of-the-box concepts in promoting high-spending Chinese tourists to Sri Lanka.

Prior to this meeting, Zhu met Milinda Moragoda, Founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, and discussed further expanding of Sri Lanka-China economic and cultural relations for the mutual benefit of the two countries. Zhu expressed his confidence that sectors, such as agriculture/agribusiness, deep-sea fishing and renewable energy are potential areas for Sino- Lankan joint ventures.

Moragoda and Zhu also discussed plans to establish an Eminent Persons’ Advisory Council (EPAC) with high level experts from both countries. The objective of the EPAC is mainly to map-out the long term (15-20 years) economic, political and cultural relations between the two countries. Under the EPAC, attention will also be paid to constraints holding back an expansion and deepening of all facets of the bilateral relations between the two countries.