For the first time in the history of Sri Lankan Tourism industry, Sri Lanka and India have decided to launch a joint extensive tourism promotion programme to promote Chinese Tourist market attraction more and more tourists to Indian sub continent.

Minister of Tourism, Milinda Moragoda and Nirupama Rao current Indian Ambassador in Beijing had a discussion on this proposal and Indian Embassy will support to campaign Sri Lanka as a tourist destination and Sri Lankan Tourism will provide special campaign based on ‘‘Aubowan Sri Lanka” for developing the destination awareness.

Ministry of Tourism organized a jointly coordinated event with the Indian Embassy for develop the Chinese relationship. In this event Sri Lanka has presented the Sri Lankan Cultural and folk music event reaching to several leading Chinese cites and both countries jointly campaign on tour information and excellent package for Chinese tourist with a view to encouraging them to hold their travel in Sri Lanka. Moreover, the Sri Lanka Tourism Ministry has encouraged contacts between the State level tourism administrations in India and those at the Provincial level in Sri Lanka.

After the fully control of security concerns in the North and the East of the country, the actual tourist areas remain to be safe for tourists and the positive approach of the travel trade is made obvious by the continued participation at crucial professional events, a spokesman of the ministry of Tourism said.

Ministry of Tourism briefed Indian Ambassador in Beijing on the measures taken by Sri Lanka to develop the tourism sector, including through private-public sector partnerships and China is one of the largest targeted markets for Sri Lanka’s tourist industry, now providing around in between seven to ten Thousand of visitors arrivals. According to Chinese Tourism data there are more than 4.5 Million tourists visiting other countries annually. With this joint campaign Sri Lanka would expect arrival will increase soon and it will benefit the Indian sub continent.

The two countries jointly addressed the subject of further strengthening collaboration in the field of tourism between their two countries. It was felt that the approach of partnership between the state sector and private enterprise could be reflected in the composition of the two delegations for the India-Sri Lanka Joint Working Group. An area of special focus would be the circuit of Buddhist sites that is a key strand of the many links between the two nations.