On June 14, Mr. MA Mingqiang, Secretary-General of the ASEAN China Centre (ACC) attended the 8th International Forum on Chinese Outbound Tourism. In his remarks as VIP guest, Mr. MA noted, with the fast pace of China's economy and continuous improvement of living standard, outbound travel from China has been increasing rapidly over the past years. One of the key jobs of ACC is to strengthen China's tourism cooperation with ASEAN Member States, provide service and promote tours to ASEAN Member States made by Chinese citizens. ASEAN Member States have become popular travel destinations for Chinese citizens, with a total of 7.97 million visitations to ASEAN Member States in 2011, over 10% of the total outbound visitations by Chinese citizens. ACC is committed to promote ASEAN tourism attractions and raise the awareness of ASEAN Member States as travel destinations through media, and by organizing forums, seminars and photo exhibitions since its establishment last year. As supporter of the forum, ACC is dedicated to work together with the industry to better travel product and improve service quality.
H.E. Datuk Iskandar Bin Sarudin, Ambassador of Malaysia to China was also among the distinguished guests who were invited to attend and address the forum. Representatives from China National Tourism Administration, National Tourism Association, National Tourism Academy, and nearly 200 industry insiders came together to discuss topics about outbound travel product transition, and high-end travel marketing among many other important issues of interest.