Hospitality trade to go for Chinese flavour

Shirajiv Sirimane

China is to train Sri Lankan tour guides in Shanghai. In addition Sri Lankan chefs too would be educated, so as to provide a better service to Chinese tourists visiting Sri Lanka.

Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau, (SLTPB) Bernard Goonetilleke in an interview with Sunday Observer said that 15 local tourist guides would be sent to the Shanghai Institute of Tourism for training next month. “This is for a five months period,” he added.

These guides would have the opportunity to learn Chinese and also be accomplished in Chinese traditions and culture.

“When Chinese tourists visit Sri Lanka, these trained guides would be able to provide them enhanced services,” he said. In addition a Chinese chef too would be in Sri Lanka for a six months period to train local chefs.

“Chinese tourists prefer to have authentic Chinese meals and our objective is to train local chefs in leading hotels so that they would be able to provide this service,” he said.

The visiting Chinese Chef would conduct courses at the Institute of Hotel Management (Hotels School) and also in outstations. These two developments are subsequent to a MoU that was signed between SLTPB Chairman, Goonetilleke and President, Shanghai Institute of Tourism, Yang Weiwu.

The MoU will entail promoting more common prosperity and Development of tourism related facilities. The signing of the MoU was organized by Consulate of Sri Lanka in Shanghai.

Goonetilleke said that there were over 10,000 Chinese arrivals this year and this is on the increase. “One problem is to promote this destination is the lack of direct air links as only SriLankan flies to Beijing.

“We are currently looking at other options to iron out this grey area,” he said. An aggressive marketing campaign too is on the cards and SLTPB is also looking at selling Sri Lanka and the Maldives in one package to woo more Chinese tourists.

Meanwhile Director of Siddalepa Hotels, Asoka Hettigoda said that there are 40 million Chinese tourists and Sri Lanka should market its Buddhist circuit to China as there are 700 million Buddhists,” he said.

He said that it is high time that Sri Lanka starts renaming the Cultural Triangle as the Buddhist Triangle as it would be more meaningful.