12 SEEN @
12 SEEN @ ITB CHINA As main partner in ITB China, Finland gained a lot of attention among the Chinese tour operators. With an important delegation headed up by Paavo Virkkunen, Executive Vice President, Visit Finland, the stand of the “homeland of Santa” was busy throughout the show. The target audience for Visit Finland is “well-travelled and educated individuals looking for new and authentic travel experiences and China’s sophisticated travellers fit this well. Overnight stays from Greater China continue to grow consistently year over year and increased to 358,669 nights in Finland in 2017, which was an increase of 32.2% over 2016 and a three-year increase of 239% since 2014. While continuing to leverage the success of the StopOver Finland which made it easy for Chinese The Visit Finland team is henceforth led by David Wu (Director, Greater China, Business Finland Oy – Visit Finland). Wu joined Visit Finland in 2013 as a marketing representative for East China market. In 2017, he was promoted to be Visit Finland Greater China Director. After working in the industry for many years, he has a solid understanding of China outbound travel market. HELSINKI PARTNERS WITH TENCENT Helsinki was promoting a new service for Chinese travellers at ITB China. The cooperation between Helsinki and Tencent gives the Finnish capital a ground-breaking channel straight into the mobile devices of WeChat users. Helsinki has set itself the goal of being the most digitalised city in the world, and the cooperation with Tencent ensures that the city is already now a globally remarkable innovator in digital tourism services. service and emergency help are also included. Helsinki’s open data resources include databases for places, events and services, and these will be utilised through an open API in the next phase of the application. The aim is to build an application that provides users with Paavo Virkkunen Executive Vice President, Visit Finland Official Partner Destination Puts on a Great Show Finland proves to be a key attraction for Chinese tourism professionals @ ITB China travellers to schedule stopovers in Finland and discover two destinations during one trip, Visit Finland is continuing to expand trade resources in 2018. Travel products and resources focus on promoting the expansion of travel to lesser known destinations within the country such as the unique Lakeland region as well as the many travel products that make longer stays attractive to the Chinese traveller, especially over Finland’s beautiful summer months. Additionally, Visit Finland is emphasising products catering to specialty travel groups such as educational travellers and winter sports enthusiasts. Finland’s Market Coverage continues to strengthen in market with Restructured China Team With the increasing growth in the China Market, Visit Finland has restructured its China team to provide even stronger support to travel partners moving forward. The City of Helsinki and Tencent signed the cooperation agreement last September, according to which Helsinki will serve as an intelligent tourism model for Chinese outbound tourism. The two cooperation partners have since co-developed a destination mini program that offers Helsinki travel information to almost one billion WeChat users. The first phase of Helsinki mini program in WeChat was launched by Mayor of Helsinki Jan Vapaavuori and General Manager Zhan Shu from Tencent Governmental Affairs and Tourism Center as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations in Helsinki. The initial version of the WeChat Helsinki mini program allows users to access content about Helsinki’s sights, services, events and transportation. Panoramic Helsinki 360-photos, a translation comprehensive, professional and real-time information and services. In June, the WeChat Helsinki mini program will be revamped to align the visual identity of MyHelsinki. fi and include an interactive map. Soon after that also transportation journey planner and the possibility to pay for transportation will be added. HELSINKI: THE FASTEST TRANSIT CITY FROM CHINA TO EUROPE The Finnish airline Finnair offers nearly 40 direct flights a week from seven major Chinese cities to Helsinki. Helsinki’s excellent accessibility has given the Finnish capital a head-start in the Chinese tourism market, and now the same step has been taken also digitally. The number of registered overnight stays by Chinese travellers in Helsinki has more than doubled in the past five years ITB CHINA NEWS • Monday 28 th May 2018 www.itb-china-news.com
SEEN @ ITB CHINA 13 Malaysia: Major Boost in Presence @ ITB China Tourism Malaysia and Penang Global Tourism team made a major impact at Shanghai show Malaysia had a much stronger presence at the 2018 edition of ITB China, and for the first time, Penang Global Tourism, with the Consulate General of Malaysia’s Tourism Section organised a destination seminar during the show. At seminar, the Chairman of Malaysia’s Tourism Promotional Board, Dato’ Siew Ka Wei also gave a presentation on Tourism Malaysia’s latest campaign with Tencent China, in conjunction with Visit Malaysia 2020. The destination seminar saw international buyers, outbound agents and the local media in attendance. The event also included a B2B session plus lucky draws comprising hotel stays, travel accessories from Penang Global Tourism and free entrance tickets to Penang attractions. GORGEOUS PENANG Penang Global Tourism recently launched a tourism campaign called “Gorgeous Penang”. The campaign aims to highlight all of Penang’s splendour to visitors locally and abroad. The campaign not only encompasses Penang’s beauty but also elements of fun, amusement, excitement and satisfaction. The Gorgeous Penang campaign will be a longterm campaign undertaken by PGT till the year 2021. During the travel fair, PGT featured two of its newly launched tourism videos as well – “Gorgeous Penang” and “It’s all in Penang”. In recent years, the Penang state tourism has been increasing efforts to make Penang known to the markets in Guangzhou, Beijing, Chengdu, Xi’an and Sanya, and arrivals from China to Penang are consistently in the top three. The first direct flight to Penang was about a decade ago from Guangzhou, and since then, flights have progressively extended to more cities in China as the demand increased. Presently there are six cities that have direct connectivity to Penang as follows: MALAYSIA SMART TOURISM 4.0 Advances in digital technology are impacting how people travel, demanding tourism-related businesses to transform the way they operate. In light of this, Tourism Malaysia has launched the Malaysia Smart Tourism 4.0 initiative to take the industry to the next level utilising opportunities in the digital age. In a study conducted by Monitor Deloitte, Smart Tourism was identified as a key thrust to greatly increase Malaysia’s tourismbased receipts, especially from the growing and high- value segment of free and independent travellers. The study indicated that Smart Tourism has the potential to grow Malaysia’s tourism-based receipts from the current USD 25 billion to USD 110 billion by 2030, a 4.4 times increase. Malaysia Smart Tourism 4.0 is an initiative that marks the first milestone in Malaysia’s 10- year tourism roadmap. The collaborative effort with Tencent Holdings, which is the 4th most valuable Internet company in the world, will provide a digital ecosystem for Malaysia to reach out to the 1.4 billion Chinese population utilizing precision marketing methods. This allows both current and new tourism industry players to implement digital technologies to enhance tourism offerings and improve tourist experiences. It is No. of flights 1. Guangzhou China Southern Airlines 7x per week 2. Hong Kong Dragonair 10x per week 3. Sanya Malindo 1x per week 4. Wuhan Malindo 3x per week 5. Kunming Lucky Air 2x per week 6. Haikou Malindo 2x per week anticipated that productivity will improve and job opportunities suited to Malaysia’s youth will increase. UNWTO analysis said it was a timely initiative since there is an anticipated 1.8 billion people travelling the world by the year 2030, a huge portion of which are the Chinese tourists. The Chinese made 130.5 million trips overseas last year, a 7% jump over 2016, while total spending increased by 5% to an estimated USD 115.3 billion. They accounted for more than a fifth of the money spent by outbound tourists, which is twice as much as the next biggest spender, the Americans. Recent reports forecast that 200 million tourists from China will be making outbound trips by the year 2020. In 2017, Malaysia registered 2.281 million Chinese tourist arrivals, a 7.4% jump over 2016. According to Dato’ Siew Ka Wei, “With Smart Tourism 4.0, there is an opportunity to grow Malaysia’s share of the China market to a potential of 8 million tourist arrivals in the year 2020” WITH SMART TOURISM 4.0, THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO GROW MALAYSIA’S SHARE OF THE CHINA MARKET TO A POTENTIAL OF 8 MILLION TOURIST ARRIVALS IN THE YEAR 2020. Dato Siew Ka Wei Chairman of Malaysia’s Tourism Promotional Board ITB CHINA NEWS • Monday 28 th May 2018
