The Sri Lankan Tourism Promotion Bureau will ink an agreement with China's e-commerce giant, Alibaba's travel arm, Fliggy, to bring down 1,000 travelers weekly to Sri Lanka for expanding the island's growing tourism sector, local media quoted Tourism Minister John Amaratunga as saying on Tuesday.
Amaratunga said after obtaining the necessary approval, the ministry will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Alibaba next week.
Supreme Global Holdings, the local company that has tied up with Alibaba, will work closely with the bureau on the project's implementation, and it also intends to promote "Alipay", an online payment of Alibaba.
The minister expressed confidence that Sri Lanka would comfortably achieve the 2.5 million target set for this year, while noting that the country could achieve 3.5 million arrivals in 2019 provided global tourism outlook remains favourable.
Over 1.3 million tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka in the first seven months of this year, recording a 13.7% growth compared with the same period of last year.
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