Against the backdrop of the global coronavirus outbreak, Chinese travellers are reported to be cancelling scheduled trips to Sri Lanka en masse, with February and March arrivals expected to hit record lows.

As at Friday (31), it was believed that over 90% of Chinese tourists had cancelled their tours to Sri Lanka and the estimated number of cancellations is between 2,000 and 3,000, industry sources who wished to remain anonymous told The Sunday Morning Business.
China has for several years been Sri Lanka’s second biggest tourism source market, with the terror hit 2019 being the only exception. China was the second-biggest tourism source market in 2018 with 265,965 tourists, a share of 11.3% of the total arrivals in the year. In 2019, however, it dropped to 167,863, a reduction of 36.9% Year-on-Year (YoY), mainly due to the Easter Sunday attacks. This placed them third in the ranking. If the current trend continues, China is likely to drop even further down the table.

The cancellations are almost certainly due to the travel restrictions placed on Chinese travellers by their own Government to prevent the spread of the virus. In fact, on Sunday (26), the Chinese Government announced a ban on outbound group travel.

Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) President Mahen Kariyawasam confirmed these reports, saying that during the Chinese New Year holiday season, which usually falls between 21 January and 20 February, Chinese tourist arrivals into Sri Lanka increases.

“Usually this is a high season for Chinese tourists in Sri Lanka because of their New Year holidays, but most of the Chinese tourists have cancelled their tours. It is difficult to say how long this situation will last,” Kariyawasam noted.

However, he added that as of Thursday (30), tour bookings from other countries were unchanged. The SLAITO is the apex body for the inbound tourism industry in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, the apex body of the hotel industry The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL’s) President Sanath Ukwatte also confirmed that several Chinese travellers have cancelled their hotel bookings.

Ukwatte noted that Chinese tourist arrivals have already come down, but the hotel cancellation rate by the Chinese tourists is not significant at the moment, while hotel bookings from other countries remain unchanged.

“A drop in hotel bookings is mainly due to travel restrictions, specifically for group travels by the Chinese Government. Immediate impact of this outbreak would reflect in the industry for the next two months. Tourism was on recovery mode following the Easter Sunday incidents and it is very unfortunate that this will also have a negative impact,” Ukwatte added.

A senior hotel industry figure attached to a leading hotel chain told The Sunday Morning Business that a significant amount of Chinese travellers have cancelled their hotel bookings but said it is still too premature to provide exact figures.

“Already China has come down to the fifth rank in Sri Lanka’s tourism markets. But other country’s tourists are coming in and so far no cancellation has been made in their trips,” the official noted on Friday (31).

Meanwhile, another senior official from a leading travel agency noted that the ban on group travel by the Chinese Government has resulted in them losing 400-500 tour bookings made by Chinese travellers.

“Most of our February tours from Chinese travellers have been cancelled. Other countries are doing fine with a very little cancellation, but even that is due to other reasons; we do not think it is due to the coronavirus,” the official noted.

In addition to this, we also spoke to the SriLankan Airlines CEO Vipula Gunatilleka who confirmed that the airline is also witnessing some cancellation in flight bookings.

“We are experiencing some cancellations out of China, mostly by Chinese tourists,” Gunatilleka noted.

After a Chinese national tested positive for coronavirus in Sri Lanka on Monday (27), Sri Lankan authorities excluded China from its on arrival free visa programme. It was later reported that the tourist has made a steady recovery.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health emergency on Thursday (30) due to the increasing number of confirmed cases reported outside China. Coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei Province, and as of Friday (31) evening, the virus had claimed 213 lives around the world and more than 9,709 cases were confirmed in mainland China.