Japan Keen on Lankan ayurvedic tourism
Sri Lanka's ayurveda healthcare is garnering the attention of the
high-end tourist market. The Japanese travel sector has shown strong
interest in Sri Lanka's ayurvedic tourism.
"Last week a Japanese Member of Parliament touring Sri Lanka
expressed interest in Sri Lanka's ayurvedic care for Japanese medical
tourists," said Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen at the
simultaneous launch of Arogya 2014 and Intrad 2014 at the BMICH
recently.
 The Arogya series of exhibitions were introduced by the National
Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka with the Ministry of Health and
features indigenous medicinal products and services.
As for Intrad, this year's exhibition is the eighth in the Intrad
series. Attending the twin exhibitions were delegations from Vietnam,
Thailand, India, the Maldives and China.
Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Deputy Health Minister
Lalith Dissanayake, President, National Chamber of Commerce, Sunil
Wijesinha and representatives from the diplomatic community were also
present.
This is the first time that the two events were held together.
Japanese tourists to Sri Lanka have doubled since 2009. In 2013, over
31,500 Japanese tourists visited Sri Lanka. In the same year, Japan was
ranked 11th in arrivals to Sri Lanka as per tourists' country of
residence, immediately below USA, which was ranked 10th.
"A Sri Lankan ayurvedic product has earned global reputation and has
opened treatment centres in Europe. Our tourism sector reported more
than 1.2 million arrivals in 2013. Since sectors such as tourism,
healthcare and inbound travel packaging are involved in ayurvedic
healthcare, we believe that public-private partnerships will strengthen
this promising sector."
"These twin events have been, gaining gradual recognition, among our
business community, as successful networking events, in Colombo. With a
per capita healthcare expenditure of only $ 175, at first glance Sri
Lanka does not appear to have an advanced healthcare infrastructure
similar to that of developed countries," he said.
"However, this does not show the full picture. Due to the support of
qualified, well-trained healthcare professionals we are witnessing the
emergence of a new sector - medical tourism. Studies show that around
15% of patients in Sri Lanka are from countries such as the Maldives,"
the Minister said.
"Two healthcare companies have programs for foreign medical tourists.
The Export Development Board which is partnering INTRAD and Arogya,
believes that medical tourism is a promising service sector to increase
foreign exchange earnings," Bathiudeen said.
Developing a strong identity in medical tourism both Western and
Ayurveda can result in a special tourism brand for Sri Lanka in the long
term," he said.
"Intrad is a wide ranging exhibition including industries, imports
and exports. We have achieved export growth of 16% (provisional) in the
first quarter of this year (from January to March), compared to the
corresponding period of last year," the Minister said.
"Accordingly, this year's first quarter exports totalled $ 2.80
billion (provisional) while the 2013 first quarter total exports stood
at $ 2.36 billion, showing a 15.7% quarterly growth," he said.
This year's first quarter export growth (provisional) was led by
fisheries, agricultural and industrial exports. The increase in exports
for March this year was a 27% (provisional) compared to February
exports. This year's March exports was a record $ 1.06 billion. These
strong growth rates are reported at a time when we are targeting a
national export goal of $ 20 billion by 2020," Bathiudeen said.
"Coming here from Vietnam for the first time, we did not know that
the Sri Lankan market had a big potential for our line of products,"
said Business Director of Alpha International Food JSC, based in Yen
Phong, Vietnam, Le Viet Anh.
"We will find an agent in Colombo to represent us. We are interested
in joint ventures at distribution level for our health confectioneries
based on tropical fruits," he said.
Alpha International Food is a top confectionery producer in Vietnam
reporting annual revenues exceeding US $ 80 million.
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