Sri Lanka-China route to get three more flights from July

Tourism Minister Harin Fernando with officials of Air China and Sri Lanka Tourism (Pic from @fernandoharin Twitter handle)

• Air China to resume service to SL with three weekly flights
• Tourism Minister assures frequency will increase in coming months
• Industry stakeholders say addition of flights to China much needed 

As Sri Lanka is witnessing a week-on-week increase in tourist arrival from China, more flights will be added in the coming months between the two countries. 

The flag carrier of the People’s Republic of China, Air China, affirmed this week it would resume operations to Sri Lanka starting July. 

According to Tourism Minister Harin Fernando, Air China has committed it would operate three flights to Sri Lanka. Fernando took to Twitter to share in brief an update in this regard.He added that the flight frequency would further be increased in the coming months. 

Speaking to Mirror Business, the industry stakeholders welcomed the move, stating that the increased number of flights will help lure more travellers from China. 

“It is a good move. It is a much-needed move. It augurs well for the industry. We needed that capacity to cater to the demand from China,” said the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators. At present, national carrier SriLankan Airlines operates a weekly service to Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.  

China’s National Health Commission announced in December that the inbound travellers will no longer have to go into quarantine and there will be no official restriction on Chinese people going abroad. 

Following the scrapping of the ‘Zero Covid-19’ policy, Sri Lanka welcomed the first group of Chinese tourists in March 2.

Since then, tourist arrivals from that country are on a steady increase. China even ranks among the top 10 key source markets for destination Sri Lanka in April, where it stood in the sixth position, moving from the 11th position in March.

For the January 1 to May 7 period, China stands as the ninth largest tourist traffic generator for Sri Lanka, contributing to 3 percent of the total tourist arrivals (11,553).