Europe’s New Role as a Major Destination for Outb…

Eduardo SANTANDER

Vice Chair of WTA

Executive Director of the European Travel Commission

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Distinguished guests：

It’s my great honour to speak on behalf of the European Travel Commission at today’s WTA Xianghu Dialogue. China remains Europe’s major tourism partner and we cannot wait to welcome Chinese tourists back to our destinations.

Not long ago, we were heartened by China’s announcement of reopening. And this year, we will hear more policy announcements boosting Chinese tourists’ confidence of traveling abroad. The decision to ease the restrictions on cross-border travel is certainly very good news for consumers who crave for long-haul travel, and more and more Chinese tourists are eager to travel overseas again.

According to the latest research, more than 60% of tourists expect to visit destinations outside of East Asia in the next two months. From the travel data from January to February, we can see an upward trend, and a large increase from 2020, but still below the pre-pandemic level. But we can also see that after China’s reopening, there are still some barriers and challenges to overcome, such as the source of tourists, China’s transport capacity for Europe-bound travellers, the passenger’s experience at airports, and testing methods for Covid-19 prevention and control.

For example, the flight routes to and from China are still running at low capacity, and flight numbers still far behind pre-pandemic levels. According to some recent reports, the change in China’s Covid-19 policies was reflected in the attention and concerns of Chinese tourists in January. Some flights and routes are temporarily or even permanently cancelled, and this has a relatively large impact on tourism.

Despite all this, opportunities abound. The Chinese market is a huge market of vital importance to all European destinations. China remains one of the biggest source markets for European tourism. Before the pandemic, 15.4 million travellers from China arrived in Europe on average a year, an astronomical figure. And despite the decline of Chinese outbound travel in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, we expect Chinese arrivals to Europe to rebound to 42% of the pre-pandemic level this year. Looking into the future, we believe it is time to go deeper into the Chinese market to better understand the needs of Chinese tourists and make better use of the recovery of Chinese outbound travel.

In fact, the ETC China Chapter has done a lot of research in this respect for we are aware of the popularity of European destinations among Chinese tourists, and we want to seize this opportunity. We want Chinese tourists, especially independent travellers, to have a good tourist experience after the pandemic. But at the same time, we are also aware of all the factors that may discourage people from traveling. For Chinese tourists, safety is a big concern. In this regard, nothing has changed in Europe, either before or after the pandemic. While the pandemic has changed people’s mind and behaviour to some extent, it won’t lessen the importance of some priorities. This is something that our tourism professionals must come to recognize.

We can see that the global tourism industry is shifting its focus to semi-customized or independent travel. The same is true for European tourism. Many small-sized travel agencies have emerged in China, and many young Chinese are tech-savvy and fluent in foreign languages, and have more ideas about their travel plan. We hope to bring a better travel experience to these independent tourists. As a professional European tourism agency, we must keep up with the market demand and do so quickly. We are urging member states and member organisations to be better prepared and welcome Chinese tourists back to Europe as soon as possible. In 2022, our global strategy is to put these ideas into practice. Over the past year, through the development of creative cities, outdoor tourist destinations, and historic destinations, we have increased the appeal of these destinations to tourists. We hope that every individual visitor will fully immerse themselves in the atmosphere and have their most memorable lifetime adventure.

We will strengthen cooperate with our partners in China. Taking into account the ideas of local stakeholders, our China Chapter held a travel forum in Beijing, where European destination representatives and tourism partners and companies joined Chinese tourism leaders in discussions about the future of tourism. The event gave European companies an opportunity to exchange ideas with Chinese partners and better understand the rising tourism trends.

The ETC attended major travel conferences in Shanghai in 2021, 2022 and will attend the upcoming ones in 2023. A big reason is that international travel has resumed, so there will be new business opportunities. All enterprises need to get prepared, grasp the market potential and turn it into revenue.

The ETC believes that in the new situation facing the tourism industry, if we stick to the old way of working, we won’t be able to adapt to the post-pandemic world and environment. Making timely changes is critical to our recovery.

Moreover, in order to better respond to new tourists and their new needs, I think European destinations and companies should double down on sustainability. For this purpose, we are developing the new ETC Strategy 2030 to better define how different members and companies can contribute to the transition to green tourism. To better support effective recovery of our sector from the pandemic, we plan to further promote eco-friendly tourism practices, not only in Europe, but around the world, including China. Travel is entering a new post-pandemic reality, and we must do our best to make better use of the opportunities presented by the Chinese market. Global tourism companies and organizations should work together in this respect.

That’s the end of my speech. We look forward to welcoming Chinese travellers back to European destinations. Thank you.

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原标题：《Europe’s New Role as a Major Destination for Outbound Tourism》

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