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by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

An agreement was signed in China last week between the Sri Lankan and Chinese governments to award accredited tourist destination status to Sri Lanka at the Chinese International Travel Mart in Shanghai last month, the Tourist Board Chairman, Paddy Vithana told the "Sunday Observer".

This was the first occasion where official destination status was conferred on Sri Lanka by the Chinese government and the 27th country to be honoured. This means that the Chinese travel agents will be authorised to sell Sri Lankan holiday packages to the Chinese, he said.

The agreement was signed by the Vice Chairman, Sun Gang of the Chinese Tourist National Administration (CTNA). Later several Chinese travel representatives were briefed by Sri Lankan officials on travel related matters. The Chinese International Travel Mart had representatives from 46 countries with 20 Sri Lankan companies.

Vithana said that the Tourist Board is on the look out for persons conversant in Chinese language to be recruited as travel guides. According to tour operators, the Chinese tourist groups have already began to arrive in Colombo and experts have predicted the growth of the Chinese out-bound market to be enormous. Tourism officials are already looking at the possibility of attracting regional tourism to their country. Countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Bangkok were reported to be having around 60 per cent of regional tourists.

Meanwhile, several new agreements between foreign and local travel companies have been signed at the World Tourism Mart in London last week to lure tourists to Sri Lanka during the next winter season.

Vithana said the World Tourism Mart was an important event in the travel calendar and the response from travel companies was good.

Meanwhile at a separate function several travel awards were given to foreign tour operators and charter airlines for promoting Sri Lanka abroad. A wedding brochure and a consumer brochure were distributed among travel agents in UK to promote Sri Lanka. The Tourist Board Chairman had also made a presentation at the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) in London on the tourism recovery plan in Sri Lanka.

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