Friday, 20th February 2015
By Ravi Ladduwahetty
Ceylon Finance Today: Tourism and Sports Minister Navin Dissanayake has told Hilton International chain's Vice President – Operations for South East Asia William Costley that the trend was that Chinese arrivals in Sri Lanka were well poised to beat British arrivals in Sri Lanka.
In 2015, the visitors from China will out beat the traditional market UK numbers touching almost a 200, 000 guests even though the average stay per visitor will be higher for a typical tourist, he told Costley.
Costley met Minister Dissanayake and the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Bureau Rohantha Athukorala to explain the importance of the Chinese tourist in their global operations. One in two guests in the top end hotel properties in Maldives are Chinese, commented William Costley. Minister Dissanayake commented that the reason for this increase was due to the weather, cultural and historic places of interest, and cleanliness of the country with the safety factor he said.
The minister requested the Hilton Vice President Operations, to share the overall guest experience touch points that a typical Chinese tourist expects to be shared so that we can learn from the Hilton experience and consumer insight.
Chairman Sri Lanka Tourism Rohantha Athukorala mentioned that at last, there will be a direct flight that Air China will be operating four times per week, whilst there will be a charter aircraft which will come into play later during the year, which will further boost the market development of this segment of business. The typical Dutch experience in Galle is a sought after attraction, which is an interesting insight of a typical Chinese traveller whilst as per the airport exit survey, eight per cent Chinese visitors are free independent travellers, three per cent are through Sri Lankan travel companies, and the bulk of it — 90% are either Chinese or collaborated travel companies that operate jointly; which means the market is trade driven than consumer driven. There is a top end travel fair that Sri Lanka Tourism will take part in China in the first week of March, with around 30 top Sri Lankan travel partners who will drive this segment to be 200,000 visitors plus, said Athukorala. Also present at the meeting was Manesh Fernando General Manager Hilton Hotels and Resorts in Sri Lanka.
From : https://www.ceylontoday.lk/22-85253-news-detail-chinese-will-beat-traditional-uk-market.html
