Sri Lanka Tourism’s novel Joint Mega Promotional campaign named “Sri Lanka Shines in Beijing”, started off in the Chinese capital yesterday with the aim of attracting potential Chinese travelers to Sri Lanka. This Joint Mega Promotion campaign is a result of collective efforts of public and private sector organisations in travel and tourism industry, initiated by the President.

“Sri Lanka Shines In Beijing” joint mega promotion campaign is held under the guidance of Minister of Economic Development .Basil Rajapaksa. This event has been organized by Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau and Sri Lankan embassy in China.

The campaign kicked off yesterday at China World Hotel with a ‘Sri Lankan Night’ which featured a series of activities highlighting the Island’s culture and tradition. “Sri Lankan Night” featured cultural shows reflecting the unique Sri Lankan identity. The Sri Lankan Night is to be followed by a ‘Business forum’ to be held today at the China World Hotel targeting the travel and trade participants. “Sri Lanka Shines in Beijing” will gather further momentum, with a shopping mall promotion campaign at “THE PLACE” of Beijing, running up to three days, starting today.

As part of this mega campaign, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion has launched a mega Billboard advertising campaign in the city of Beijing in parallel to a series of other promotional activities such as promoting Sri Lanka through Light box advertising, paper advertisements , radio jingles and also a PR campaign. The Billboard campaign is the first ever promotion of its kind ever to be executed in the Chinese market at this scale. The LED backlit hoarding screens will be displayed in over 21 strategic locations in Beijing, These bill locations showcase major tourism attractions in Sri Lanka including history and culture, beaches, wildlife, festivals, ayurveda and spa, gem & jewellery that are of interest to the Chinese travellers. Meanwhile prominent places in 18 subway railway stations in Beijing have been identified as high spots for the promotion.

“Sri Lanka Shines in Beijing” promotional campaign has already set its mark as a major promotional tool towards attracting 2.5 million tourists per annum by 2016. Out of the expected 2.5 million tourists to the country, Sri Lanka is planning to attract 275,000 Chinese travellers into the country.

While Chinese tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka is on a steady rise with a year-on-year increase of 74 percent. The latest jump shows encouraging signs as the Government of Sri Lanka is campaigning vigorously to capture a slice out of the growing Chinese outbound tourism market, which during the year 2012 in total stood at 83 million tourists.