European Travel Commission targets travellers from China, launches portal

Brussels-based European Travel Commission (ETC), a non-profit organisation focused on marketing and promoting tourism to Europe from long-haul markets, and European Commission (EC) have announced the launch of Travel Destination Europe and the portal in China.

This launch marks the first step in the recently strengthened cooperation between ETC and the EC to promote Europe as a travel destination in long-haul emerging markets and the recognition of China as one of the most important opportunities for outbound travel to Europe in the coming years.

“With the launch of our new Chinese web portal, visiteurope.com, today we declare our common initiative to focus on the Chinese market promoting Travel Destination Europe,” said Petra Hedorfer, president of ETC.

Promotional activity will begin in China through the visiteurope.com portal, with a series of campaigns initiating in 2012 focused on ‘Europe’s Ultimate Journeys’, designed to promote the most relevant pan-European tourism products to Chinese visitors.

Pedro Ortún, Director for Tourism, CSR, Consumer Goods and International Regulatory Agreements at the EC, said that the approval of the Visa Code for the Schengen area and the recent adoption of a harmonised list for supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in China will certainly help in attracting more Chinese visitors to Europe.