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Colombo, February 16 2017: SriLankan Airlines added yet another accolade when China’s Top Travel magazine named it the Best Airline in South Asia at the 10^th Annual Top Travel Awards, recognizing SriLankan’s continuous efforts at expanding travel between China and Sri Lanka.

This is the latest in a string of awards for Sri Lanka’s National Carrier. SriLankan Airlines was recently crowned the “World’s Leading Airline Operating to the Indian Ocean Region” at the prestigious World Travel Awards and “Best Full Service Airline in Central and South Asia” for the second consecutive year at the Future Travel Experience Asia Awards. SriLankan was also last year named the “Most Innovative Marketing Airline in China” by Life Weekly magazine.

Wang Jianmei, the Chief Editor of Top Travel, said: “The Award of Best Airline in South Asia that Top Travel bestowed upon SriLankan Airlines is well earned. We are pleased to see that more and more Chinese tourists choose SriLankan Airlines to travel to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles and many more destinations in the world.”

Ravindran Veeraperumal, SriLankan Airlines Country Manager China, who received the award on behalf of SriLankan, said: “This is a great acknowledgement and encouragement for our efforts to promote travel on SriLankan. We strive to maintain our highest standard and delight our customers. On behalf of SriLankan Airlines, I would like to thank Top Travel for this award and all my team members for making this possible. With the commitment and support of our entire airline, we expect to win many more awards in the future.’

SriLankan now serves five cities in China - Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, Guangzhou (Canton) and Hong Kong – operated on state-of-the-art Airbus A330 wide-body aircraft with passengers enjoying the legendary hospitality of SriLankan Airlines cabin crew, together with the most modern onboard entertainment system, luxurious seating and the finest in-flight cuisine.

China is now Sri Lanka’s second largest tourism market, behind India. A total of 271,577 Chinese tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2016, a 26% year on year increase, according to statistics of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority.

SriLankan recently adopted a new strategy of focusing on the Asia and Middle East region and added 11 new destinations in Asia during the last quarter of 2016, also increasing services to many of its existing destinations throughout Asia. It has the largest foreign airline network in India with over 100 flights to 11 cities and is also the largest international airline serving the Maldives, with 25 flights per week.

SriLankan’s global network covers 101 cities in 47 countries and as a member of the oneworld global airline alliance, SriLankan also connects its passengers to oneworld’s worldwide network of more than 1,000 destinations in 160 countries.