Eva Airways and Shanghai do common promotion in Europe

PARIS- The warming in relations between China PRC and Taiwan provide new marketing opportunities for EVA Airways Corp., Taiwan's largest private carrier. The airline was touring this week major cities in Europe, including London and Paris to present a new cooperation program under “One Trip Taiwan and Shanghai”. airline, and the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, announced a partnership in London on Tuesday to promote both Taiwan and Shanghai.

For Li Bin Cheng, Director of Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, Shanghai is a highly attractive tourism destination as it accommodates every year some eight million travellers. “From this number, some 700,000 come from Europe. It sounds very little compared to our total outcome. However, European tourists tend to stay longer, spend more and show a lot of interests for various activities, especially culture”, he explains. Shanghai four largest markets from Europe are Germany, the UK, France and Italy indicates Li Bin Cheng.

Ken Chang, senior vice president passenger management department EVA Air indicated that the airline started to cooperate with Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration four years ago in North America. “We obtained satisfying results in North America and we believe that this could also be reproduced in Europe as there is a keen interest for Shanghai, one of China's most attractive cities”, he explains. “For tourists from Europe, Shanghai is the place where they can envision what China's amazing economic development means. Many Europeans have for example a keen interest for contemporary architecture, a symbol of China new prosperity”, tells Li Bin Cheng.

For Eva Air, to be associated with Shanghai will also raise awareness among European air travellers as Taipei still lacks a distinctive image as a destination -despite being one of Asia's most vibrant cities. “Traffic across the Strait of Taiwan is booming and we are adding more flights year after year. We currently serve with 150 weekly flights 29 destinations, not only from Taipei but also from Taichung and Kaohsiung. This is very easy now to connect into China through Taipei”, adds Ken Chang.

In Europe, Eva Air serves four cities, Amsterdam, London, Paris and Vienna. It recently put new aircraft to Europe and added new frequencies to Paris and Vienna (from 3 to 4 weekly frequencies) while flying to Amsterdam 3 times a week and daily to London. “We hope to be able to get traffic rights to Frankfurt. We could also easily add a fifth frequency to Paris as we have a load factor of 85%. However, there is no open skies between the European Union and Taiwan. It makes negotiations slower”, adds Chang.

Sourced: TravelDailyNews