Sri Lanka Tourism Launches Major Television Advertising Campaign in China Travel Channel

Sri Lanka Tourism welcomed a 13 member group from China’s ‘The Travel Channel’, at the Bandaranaike International Airport, who arrived here to start work towards, promoting the Island aggressively in China via the Channel starting from January 2014. ‘The Chinese Travel Channel’ which has an audience of 650 million Chinese, will use a mix of both programs and commercials to help promote Sri Lanka, which in otherwise would have cost a commercial value of a sum of Rs. 2,800 million. The agreement to start the proposed campaign, an initiative of Minister Basil Rajapaksa was signed between the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau and the Chinese Travel Channel today (14th) afternoon. Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau and Sri Lanka Embassy in China organized this television advertising campaign' Mr. Yan Yi, the Director of The Travel Channel and Mr. Rumy Jauffer, Managing Director of the SLTPB, signed the agreement on-behalf of each other institutions in the presence of Hon. MLAM Hizbullah – Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Mr. Ren Fanqing, Deputy Ambassador of China in Sri Lanka, Mr. Bhashwara Gunarathna Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism and Dr.D.S Jayaweera – Director General of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. The event was held at the Mount Lavinia Hotel. With this agreement, the Travel Channel will broadcast 2,500 advertisements spots and over 500 minutes of feature programs and interviews about Sri Lanka during the whole of January 2013. Sri Lanka is the first country the Chinese travel Channel has chosen to provide advertising exposure in year 2014.

                                   Mr. Ren Fanqing, Deputy Ambassador of China in Sri Lanka

                                           Mr. Yan Yi, the Director of The Travel Channel