Chinese visit will benefit Wicklow
WICKLOW is poised to take advantage of ‘significant opportunities’ following a delegation to China.
Last month members of Wicklow County Council and Wicklow County Tourism recently travelled to China to promote Wicklow and strengthen the partnership with the Province of Hainan.
In July 2017, Wicklow County Council and the Province of Hainan in China, signed a friendship agreement and in November the Wicklow delegation visited the 2017 Hainan International Tourism Island Carnival Exhibition.
Christine Flood of Wicklow County Council said that Wicklow and Hainan are looking at various cooperation opportunities in sectors such as education, tourism, agriculture, culture and the arts, and film production.
She said that Hainan which is an island South of China’s mainland is fighting very hard to become one of the world’s top holiday destination. Hainan has been called the Hawaii of China, and just hosted the Miss World competition.
Seventy million people visit the island each year, the majority coming from mainland China.
Ms Flood said that tourism in China is growing at a fast pace, and one in three Chinese took a holiday last year. Tourism Ireland is expecting the launch of two direct flights from China next year. There are also talks about opening direct flights from Hainan’s capital Haikou to London early next year.
Cllr Edward Timmins who was on the delegation said the Wicklow delegation were the only English speakers who addressed the conference and said that they had a large tourism stand to promote Ireland and Wicklow as a place to visit.
Ms Flood said that since the visit ‘several opportunities have emerged including a meeting with the former Chinese ambassador to Ireland who spoke very highly of Bray Town Council and Cllr Vance from the time Ireland hosted the Special Olympics.
‘ This affords us an opportunity to reach out to a significant market’, she said.
Ms Flood said that while there the delegation had visited a film studio which had 19,000sq metres of studio space.
Food, drink, aqua culture and other areas where she said that Wicklow could capitalise on the links with China.
‘Some initiatives are just about to take off. There is an unfulfilled demand for seafood in China and the next step is to prepare a strategy to work on these links and set ourselves timelines and targets.’
She said the immediate plan is to take part in the EU China Project - the Lightbridge Project.
Cllr Pat Vance said it ‘was astounding the type of contacts we made’.