Source: Developed by the authors using SLTDA (2020) and Worldometer (2020) data

About 45 percent of the tourists arrived to Sri Lanka from four source markets in 2019: India, UK, China and Germany. Out of these four, only China has been successful in combatting the COVID-19 as of now. The latest study report by Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) along with CCT and IVY Alliance highlights the post-COVID19 travel behavior of Chinese tourists. According to the reports Japan (18%) and Thailand (14%) will remain as the most preferred travel destinations among the Chinese tourist, followed by European countries (14%), and Maldives, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Further, opening up Chinese tourism destinations for domestic tourists is a good sign of resilience in China.

On the other hand Sri Lanka is one of the few countries who still keep the situation under control. At the moment (16^th May) there are only about 935 active COVID 19 patients recorded, and that is less than most of the best tourism destinations in South Asia. This is a strong pull factor to promote Sri Lanka as a post-COVID19 destination with a new tag line ‘So Safe Sri Lanka’ . Therefore, we can expect an early resumption of Chinese tourists’ arrivals to Sri Lanka before we think of the West. Although Sri Lanka tourism has failed to identify niche tourist from China, we suggest the practitioners to do a comprehensive market survey and prepare the destination to welcome the right clientele from China.

As mentioned earlier it is not possible to resume mass tourism in near future since mass gatherings are risky until a vaccine is developed to fight with COVID-19. Now the challenge lies ahead is to re-brand Sri Lanka as a ‘Niche Tourism Destination’ after correct tourism product identification and development. The concept of ‘quantity’ has failed and the ‘quality’ is emerging. Alternative tourism will protect the people, environment and economy while empowering the rural communities to increase their living standards. A learning based active experience will be a definite value addition to the promotion of alternative tourism development in Sri Lanka while using correct platforms to market our products. Researches based innovative methods will give birth to ‘Creative Tourism’ that will position Sri Lanka as a pristine Niche tourist destination in the world.