Tourism coordinators of 16 Central and Eastern European countries, representatives of related ministries and 127 tour operators with Chinese tourism ties are meeting in person for the first time at the China-CEE Tourism Cooperation Conference organized on 25th-27th March in Budapest. At the event, the launching of a new Beijing-Budapest flight was also announced.

In his opening speech, Deputy State Secretary for Tourism Ádám Ruszinkó stressed that the China-CEE Tourism Coordination Centre, operated by Hungarian Tourism Ltd (HT Ltd), is to spearhead the promotion of the region’s sixteen countries on the Chinese tourism market.

As he pointed out, the tourism sector has been the first field where public administration and tourism organizations had managed to engage private sector enterprises with Chinese tourism ties and thus tourism relations have entered a new stage. Ádám Ruszinkó also announced that as of 1 May Air China is to launch four regular flights per week – via Minsk -- between Beijing and Budapest, which is also expected to boost tourism traffic in the region.

Some days ago the Government of Hungary ratified an agreement that recognizes the Chinese language as the official language of the organization.

World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Deputy Secretary General Zoltán Somogyi said global tourism traffic growth beat all prior expectations last year, increasing by 4.7 percent, and prognoses are predicting that expansion will continue in the face of geo-political and healthcare risks. The role of China in this expansion, he added, is indisputable: the number of tourists from China grew by 11 million last year, to 110 million. The number of Chinese travellers to Europe, however, fell slightly to 6-7 million which shows that Europe has to do more to increase this figure. Zoltán Somogyi also emphasised the significance of regional and sub-regional intergovernmental partnerships, for which the one-year-old China-CEE tourism project is a good example.

China National Tourism Administration president Li Jinzao said that the tourism sector has been among the successful economic branches, and in 2014 the number of Chinese tourists travelling in the country was 3.6 billion, up by 10 percent compared to the previous year. The number of foreign visitors reached 128 million, while as a result of a 19.49 percent surge that of Chinese travelling abroad breached the 100 million mark and hit 107 million, he explained. China continues to be the country with one of the world’s largest domestic tourism markets and one of the world’s largest sender markets. He stated that this high profile event serves as an excellent opportunity for experts from the CEE region to explore the Chinese market and foster relations.

HT Ltd CEO Péter Faragó added that thanks to the partnership project several results have been achieved, and a Chinese-English dual language website has been launched, where the countries of the region can present themselves. In addition to organizing this event, the tourism centre has been active in promoting and coordinating tourism offers.

(Ministry for National Economy)