Abstract:
Against the backdrop of the deepening cooperation between the “Belt and Road" Initiative and
global tourism, tourism trade between China and Sri Lanka has become a crucial link in the
two countries’ economic and trade exchanges as well as people-to-people interactions. Focusing
on the core perspective of “mutually beneficial development", this paper explores the
sustainable development path of China-Sri Lanka tourism trade. First, the study sorts out the
existing foundation of China-Sri Lanka tourism trade, including Sri Lanka’s abundant natural
and cultural tourism resources, the huge demand from China’s outbound tourism market, and
the cooperation achievements between the two countries in areas such as visa facilitation and
air route connectivity. Second, it analyzes the current challenges in cooperation, such as the
insufficient adaptability of Sri Lanka’s tourism infrastructure, the need to enhance the complementarity
of tourism products between China and Sri Lanka, and the imperfection of regional
tourism cooperation mechanisms. On this basis, the paper puts forward optimization suggestions
from the "mutual benefit" dimension. For Sri Lanka, it can rely on Chinese investment
to improve tourism infrastructure and develop cultural and health tourism products suitable
for Chinese tourists. For China, it can expand its outbound tourism market through China-Sri
Lanka tourism cooperation and promote tourism enterprises to participate in the upgrading of
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.Finally, the study points out that China and Sri Lanka need to take
policy coordination as the guarantee, resource complementarity as the support, and benefitsharing
as the goal to build a multi-level tourism cooperation system. Only in this way can the
two countries achieve the long-term sustainable development of tourism trade and inject new
impetus into bilateral practical cooperation.
