A growing gateway for Chinese tourists
Tourism: Vancouver’s favourable location sets it up for success
In many ways, Metro Vancouver’s growing role in Asia- Pacific business relations was demonstrated by an event in Richmond last week.
That event was the opening reception of the Active America- China Travel Summit, which took place last Tuesday. The conference gathered 60 buyers from China’s tourism industry and 115 tour suppliers from Canada and the United States. Their goal was simple: To better facilitate ( and profit from) the waves of Chinese tourists arriving in North American airports daily.
The fact that the gathering ( which lasted all this past week) was held in Richmond was revealing in itself. In the six years since the conference’s launch, this was the first time the event took place on Canadian soil. The symbolism may be more telling than the event itself, which amounted to a cross- Pacific tourism trade fair. But Canada — and Metro Vancouver in particular — has clearly wedged itself into the travel industry conversation.
This is not just a reflection of the increase in Chinese tourists coming to Canada since the two nations signed the Approved Destination Status agreement in 2010, making it easier for Chinese travellers to obtain permission to visit the Great White North.
Since 2008, the number of visitors coming to Canada from most major nations has seen little change, or even declined. From 2008 to 2013, the visitor count from France changed from 425,409 to 465,548; Germany, from 332,008 to 322,419; Britain, from 869,926 to 663,219; and Japan, from 287,198 to 238,474.
Compare that, however, to the figures for Chinese tourists ( excluding Hong Kong): 165,823 in 2008 to 365,314 last year. During that period, China went from ninth place on Canada’s foreign tourist rankings to fourth — and may, if current growth trends continue, overtake France and join the U. S. and Britain as Canada’s biggest sources of tourism dollars.
The decision by Active America to bring the conference to Richmond, with the summit’s large number of American participants, indicates that Vancouver may now be gaining momentum as a jumping- off point for Chinese tourists looking at visiting south of the border.
Ever since Canadian authorities implemented the China Transit Program in late 2012, Chinese visitors can fly to Vancouver and connect to another U. S.- bound flight without a Canadian visa. Given Vancouver’s geographic advantages over other ports of entry on the North American west coast, the transit program has given YVR another valuable source of business: connecting traffic.
Take a look at Vancouver’s distance and flight times to Beijing, as compared to cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco: the distance from Beijing to Vancouver is about 8,536 kilometres, roughly an 11- hour flight. The same trip from Beijing to San Francisco is 9,525 kilometres ( or 12 hours, 20 minutes), and to Los Angeles is a whopping 10,083 kilometres, a 13- hour flight.
Vancouver maintains a similar advantage when it comes to flights to and from Shanghai.
Vancouver makes a lot of sense as North America’s most popular gateway for Chinese tourists looking for a shorter flight. And the availability of bilingual English-Mandarin personnel in the city also helps to provide connecting Chinese passengers with as seamless a connecting experience as possible in a country where Chinese is not an official language.
YVR officials have long stated they want to see a similar program struck with Latin American countries, so as to connect Chinese business travellers with the country’s growing interest in Central and South America.