Canada gung-ho about arrival of Chinese tourists under new agreement
- Source: Xinhua
- [16:43 August 18 2010]
- Comments
Chinese tourists aboard a flight to Vancouver Wednesday will get a warm welcome normally reserved for important government officials as China and Canada inaugurate a new era of tourism trade under the Approved Destination Status (ADS) conferred on Canada last December by Beijing.
Canadian government and tourism officials hope the ADS will inspire hundreds of thousands of Chinese to visit Canada, a country slightly bigger than China with just 33 million people and vast areas of pristine wilderness.
Canadians hope Chinese tourism to Canada will double from about 200,000 this year to 400,000 in 2015 because of the ADS.
The Canadian Tourism Commission has been seeking an ADS designation from the Chinese government for the past ten years. In 2005, Canada and China came close to reaching an agreement. The final approval came from Beijing last December.
Michele McKenzie, president of the Canadian Tourism Commission, says Chinese people can expect to see a lot more advertising for Canada, geared towards those who are intrigued with the idea of clean, safe, and visitor-friendly cities bordering on vast areas of mountains, forests, and lightly-populated sea coasts.
"With Approved Destination Status, we are now allowed to market in China, and that's what we have really been interested in," she said.
"Beyond the ability to receive groups, we've wanted to market and compete in China for that growing number of visitors."
The Canadian Tourism Commission set up an office in Beijing in 2005 in anticipation of an ADS agreement. Officials of the organization say the ADS is one of the most important developments in Canada's tourism trade.
"The big opportunity is that we can now compete on a level playing field with other tourism destinations. They are all going after the same growing Chinese market, so we'll be up against them for the leisure and business travelers," she said.
Canada needs Chinese tourists. The United States recently imposed passport requirements on Americans visiting Canada, causing a slump in cross-border tourism, which was already suffering from the recession in western countries.
David Goldstein, president of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, which represents businesses and attractions that cater to travelers, plans to be at the welcoming ceremony for the first group of travelers under the ADS, who will arrive in Vancouver, on Canada's Pacific coast, on Wednesday.
Stockwell Day, president of the Treasury Board and minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, Gordon Campbell, the premier of the province of British Columbia, representatives of the Canadian Tourism Commission, and tourism industry leaders are also planning to attend the airport ceremony.
"This is going to be a very important step forward for Canadian tourism," Goldstein said. "Until now, we had a limited ability to attract Chinese tourists. They had to come here on education visas or family visit visas.
"The ADS allows Canada to market directly to the Chinese public, a huge and expanding market with 300 million people in the middle class. That's about the size of the population of the United States, and it's growing.
"We don't have to do a huge percentage of that business to have a big impact on the Canadian tourism scene," he said.
China is Canada's second-largest trading partner, after the United States. Chinese tourism, about 200,000 visitors a year before the ADS agreement, has been rising about 5 percent per year recently. Most of the travelers were students, business people and Chinese citizens with family living in Canada.
