Welcome Chinese Workshop in Brussels highlights development of Chinese outbound tourism to Western Europe

China is the biggest outbound tourism source market in the world, in the first half of 2015 alone, 62 million Mainland Chinese went abroad, spending more than 75 billion Euro according to COTRI.

How is Western Europe keeping pace with the fast-changing Chinese market and how can certification help to attract quality-minded visitors from China? Participants from six European countries gathered this week in Brussels to find some answers. The workshop was organised by Welcome Chinese Certification and conducted by GeLi Consult (Brussels) and COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute.

Welcome Chinese Certification is issued by China Tourism Academy (CTA), the think tank of China National Tourism Authority (CNTA), in partnership with Select Holding. Based on service standard for Chinese travellers, it represents the hospitality standard for the global tourism market.

The workshop was opened by Mr. Jianjun Guo, Commercial Counsellor of Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Belgium, who confirmed the significant increase of the number of Chinese tourists in Europe with an average growth of 20% each year and the need to adapt the service standard for Chinese travellers.

Mr. Eduardo Santander, Executive Director of European Travel Commission talked about Chinese tourism to Europe from the perspective of ETC, the European Travel Commission which comprises 33 National Tourism Organisations as its members. As an example for increased efforts he mentioning the new “European Academy for Chinese Speaking Tour Guides”, a project by the tour operator CAISSA and COTRI with official support of ETC.

Jacopo Sertoli, CEO of Select Holding and responsible for Welcome Chinese Certification Programme introduced the Welcome Chinese Certification, which signals to Chinese travellers the preparation of hotels, attractions, transportation companies etc. for the specific demands of this important segment of the global tourism market.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of COTRI, gave a presentation “Second Wave of China’s Outbound Tourism to Europe: Keeping pace with changing customer behaviour” and Mrs. Julia Gessner of GeLi Consult, who chaired the event, offered a presentation with particular emphasis on the Benelux market.

The workshop ended with questions and answersfrom the audience, which included participants from Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy and Germany, among them Mr. Bernard Dewit, President of the Belgian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Ms. Leticia Chen, Vice Chairman CCPIT China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and President of the Spanish-Chinese tourism association. Tourism companies present included Value Retail Outlet Villages, NH hotel group and other tourism service providers and retailers.

sourced:traveldailynews.asia