GERMANY’S NEW ZEST
The European country is cooperating with Meituan Travel to promote its cuisine to lure more Chinese visitors. Xu Lin reports.
Germany knows travel is largely a matter of taste — in every sense. The German National Tourist Board recently announced its strategic cooperation with Meituan Travel to promote German cuisine among Chinese travelers.
“We’ll make the most of our resources to recommend authentic German food and drinks to Chinese through online and offline events,” says He Sheng, who’s in charge of Meituan Travel’s overseas-holiday business.
The agency is owned by MeituanDianping, one of China’s largest providers of on-demand online services.
Meituan Travel covers more than 185,000 restaurants, shops and scenic spots in Germany.
Major Chinese online food-service company Dianping is hosting a series of German-food events through November.
Chinese users can browse websites exclusively dedicated to German cuisine and use Dianping to make reservations at some restaurants in Germany.
Data show outbound Chinese travelers often use Dianping to check information about overseas destinations before and during travel. The most searched German cities on the app are Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin.
“Germany offers more than ham sausages, schweinshaxe (roasted pork knuckle) and beer,” director of the GNTB’s Beijing office Li Zhaohui says.
“This year, the GNTB is promoting ‘culinary Germany’-themed tours that combine delicious food with beautiful scenery and cultural heritage. Germany hosts over 300 Michelin-starred restaurants and 1,300 breweries, and produces about 3,200 kinds of bread. Chinese gourmands will love its culinary experiences.”
Tourists can join food festivals and sample regional cuisine, such as fish and clams in the coastal areas and cheese in the Alpine Allgaeu region.
Saxony is celebrated for its food, wines and art. Traditional dishes include sauerbraten, a German pot roast, and leipziger allerlei, a vegetable dish said to originate from Leipzig city made with peas, carrots, asparagus, morels and crayfish.
Germany has 13 wine regions. This year, the GNTB has cooperated with the German Wine Institute to develop wine-trail itineraries.
Chinese visitors can walk or cycle along the routes to visit vineyards and wineries, and enjoy the sceneries and attractions.
Open-air wine festivals offer opportunities to enjoy wines and snacks, mix with locals, and enjoy parades and dancing.
Inbound tourists’ favorite activities are sightseeing, dining, strolling and shopping, a GNTB survey finds.
People who enjoy travel and food tend to be young, educated urbanites with children and frequent users of the internet, especially social media, a global survey by the London-headquartered tech company GlobalWebIndex finds.
“Such surveys offer insights about our target travelers,” Li says.
“At the same time, Germany’s good global image is drawing more tourists.”
Germany ranked No 1 on the 2017 Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index and took second place in 2016.
The index measures the power and quality of 50 countries’ “brand image” using six dimensions, including culture and tourism. It is released by the German market-research institute GfK SE and British independent-policy adviser Simon Anholt.
The Chinese recorded 2.85 million overnight stays last year, an increase of nearly 11 percent over the previous year, the Federal Statistical Office of Germany reports.
That figure only measures stays in accommodations with over 10 beds, including campsites with at least 10 pitches. It doesn’t include Chinese who use such popular short-term rental platforms as Airbnb, Li explains.
“The official numbers of Chinese who travel to Germany have been rising substantially in recent years. They’re expected to continue going up this year,” she says.
Germany is working to further simplify visa procedures for Chinese.
“The visa-application process is often considered troublesome. But that’s not true,” says Maria Schaerli, who works in the visa section of the German embassy in Beijing.
The visa section’s official website has been modified to make it easy to read, she says. It clarifies what type of documents different kinds of visitors, such as freelancers, should prepare for visa application.
The European country has 15 visa centers across China, including those in such lower-tier cities as Shandong’s provincial capital, Jinan, and Hunan’s provincial capital, Changsha.
This makes it easier for Chinese applicants to provide their biometric data for Schengen visas.
The centers also became one of the first to offer mobile-payment services for Chinese last year.
“We’re also one of the first visa sections in China to communicate with the public on social media,” Schaerli says.
“We explain what the visa is about in an easy and funny way on WeChat and Sina Weibo, and have received positive (responses). We process all our visa applications within 48 hours, even in the high season. We’re happy to issue more long-term visas of up to five years for frequent business travelers and those who often travel to Germany.”
The embassy’s visa section processed 433,000 applications from China last year, a 3 percent increase over 2016.
About one-third of the business visas issued last year are long-term.
“Our goal for this year is to make travel to Germany more attractive and to further extend our visa services,” she says.
Perhaps more Chinese will visit to savor the flavors of the country — including, but by no means limited to, its cuisine.
We process all our visa applications within 48 hours, even in the high season.”
Maria Schaerli, official of visa section of the German embassy in Beijing