Study on the sustainable path of China-Sri Lanka tourism trade from the perspective of mutual benefit and development

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.