Europe poised for bumper Chinese tourism season
PARIS: The stars are aligning for a bumper year of Chinese tourism in Europe thanks to a growing taste for culture over shopping and fears of a cold reception in Donald Trump’s America.
“We came with our children to see the art, the culture, not to go to the mall,” a 40-year- old woman who gave her name as Li told Reuters on a visit to Paris for the second time.
“We went to the Versailles castle, saw the Arc de Triomphe, and we are seeing Notre Dame now,” she said on a sunny afternoon near the French capital’s mediaeval cathedral.
In a new trend, Chinese tourists are increasingly eschewing package tours to Europe to strike out on their own trips off the beaten path, surveys suggest.
Leisure travel bookings for July and August in Europe are up more than four per cent from the same period of last year after an even stronger June, which coincided with a Chinese holiday, according to data tracked by consultancy ForwardKeys.
“This year will certainly be the year with the highest number of arrivals from China ever,” Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, a consultancy based in Germany.
The US president’s stand on trade relations with Beijing and illegal immigration, as well as his travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries, is off-putting even though his tough talk is not directed at Chinese visitors.
“Mr Trump has been helping to push Chinese tourists to go to other countries ... They see this as a crazy guy and who knows what could happen,” Arlt said.