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Local tourism explores ‘China-readiness’

Vancouver can expect to see an abnormally high number of Chinese visitors in 2018, tourism officials say, as China and Canada ramp up efforts to promote the official year of travel between the two countries.
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Marianna Cherniuk, 26, and Pius Parackal, 62, demonstrate their Chinese writing after 30 hours of training with New Occidental’s Mandarin-language program. Organizers had 2018’s Canada-China Year of Tourism in mind when the project launched in 2017 | Chuck Chiang

Vancouver can expect to see an abnormally high number of Chinese visitors in 2018, tourism officials say, as China and Canada ramp up efforts to promote the official year of travel between the two countries.

According to Tourism Vancouver, the city is projecting an 11% increase in overnight visitors from mainland China (which excludes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) in 2018, which Ottawa and Beijing have designated the Canada-China Year of Tourism.

The increase would bump the number of Chinese visitors to Vancouver this year to 331,000, up from just under 300,000 in 2017, said Stephen Pearce, Tourism Vancouver’s vice-president of marketing. He noted that efforts by Chinese and Canadian tourism officials to promote Canada in China will likely be reflected in 2018’s visitor counts.

“The fact that Canada is topical in China – the relationships at the political and trade levels – all of that resonates in terms of higher interest in … what we are,” Pearce said. “We know Vancouver attracts Chinese people for business and certainly for educational opportunities, but as a place they come to vacation, that’s a relatively recent occurrence. So anything we can do to increase our stature in the Chinese market is a good thing.”

To that end, Tourism Vancouver has been heavily promoting the city in China by pressing Chinese travel agencies to market B.C. as a destination to Chinese vacationers and by reaching out directly to consumers through social media channels like Sina Weibo and Tencent’s WeChat platform.

A recent Vancouver video on the Weibo page attracted 5.4 million views, and Tourism Vancouver is placing its advertising into health and wellness magazines, as well as partnering with companies like Lululemon Athletica (Nasdaq:LULU) to advance B.C.’s image as a healthy, outdoors-oriented destination. The key, Pearce said, is to get Vancouver’s name into as many Chinese tourists’ minds as possible through word of mouth.

Similar efforts are underway in the opposite direction. Richmond-based InterTrips Canada Ltd., which runs Chinatour.com, held a December 9 event at Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver, promoting China’s historic, cultural and natural sites. The event, co-hosted by the Canada China Business Council, aimed to use tourism as a catalyst for other potential business or cultural ties between B.C. and China, said one official.

“Direct human contact is a huge catalyst for the advancement of other relationships, such as cultural and business interaction and investment development,” said InterTrips director Colin Zuo. “There’s so much being done in China right now to promote Canada that it’s impossible for me to list them one by one. But it’s undoubtedly the case that the image of Canada, both as a tourism destination and as an origin point for tourists visiting China, will get brighter and brighter.”

Zuo added that efforts are specifically being made to drive more Canadian tourists to so-called “secondary cities” – destinations that exclude the major metropolitan areas like Beijing and Shanghai – to broaden the scope of Canadian tourism in China, as well as the geographical range of the economic benefits associated with tourism.

In that case, Vancouver’s large number of direct flights to mainland Chinese cities – 11 destinations through Air Canada (TSX:AC) and five Chinese carriers – gives the city a noted advantage not only in giving Canadians access to more of China, but also in drawing visitors over a wide geographical region in China to Vancouver, said Carl Jones, director of air service development with the Vancouver Airport Authority (YVR).

“There’s been work over the last number of years in building the links between China and here,” Jones said. “That’s quite a bit of momentum, and the route and the network buildup means a higher recognition for Vancouver in several secondary Chinese cities.… Because we’ve had those flights for a long time, it’s definitely a great platform to spread our message.”

Jones added that Air Canada’s recently launched stopover program, which allows connecting visitors to break up their itinerary to include an overnight stay in Vancouver, should further attract Chinese travellers going to another Canadian city to add Vancouver to their list of stops.

One key concern of tourism officials is the “China-readiness” of Canada’s hospitality industry. Some observers have said they believe Canadian hotels and tourist services staff may need to improve their Mandarin to better serve new tourists. Both YVR’s Jones and Tourism Vancouver’s Pearce said that is not an issue for the most part, noting a large number of volunteers and staff who are both culturally and linguistically fit to serve the anticipated wave of tourists.

But for situations where language barriers may still occur, Chinese billionaire and philanthropist Niu Gensheng, known for founding one of China’s largest dairy companies, recently co-launched New Occidental Education & Technology Group in Vancouver as a simplified way for English speakers to learn Mandarin. The program recently had its first batch of seven graduates, who were able to converse, write and present in simple Mandarin after 30 hours of in-class learning.

Niu said he had the year’s tourism-themed designation in mind when the program launched earlier this year, noting the prevalence of Canadian tourism clips on Sina Corp.’s media channels in China this year.

“That’s something that’s definitely part of our thinking,” Niu said. “Canada has been heavily promoted in the last year on various Sina channels throughout the country, and that’s going to draw a lot of people here. That’s why we think this is an opportunity for Vancouver. Lots of Chinese tourists are coming, and if you can’t take care of their basic needs, people are not going to be happy about their experience here.”

“If we can get more Canadians directly interacting with Chinese visitors, that’s undoubtedly a good thing,” Niu added. “You look at every industry, an additional language is an asset, even if it’s at a beginner’s level. Now, this is just a beginning, and we may pursue more tourism-hospitality-focused courses. This is still a new market for us, but how to expand the ability of others to enjoy the fruits of a strong Chinese economy, that’s ultimately behind everything we do as a group.”