ACC Co-hosted “Meet China: Chinese Tourist Service Matching Workshop” in Cebu

On 11 December 2015, the ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) together with the Department of Tourism of the Philippines, co-hosted “Meet China: Chinese Tourist Service Matching Workshop” in Cebu, the Philippines. The participants of the Workshop were officials from the Philippines Tourism Board, local officials, tour operators and enterprises as well as academics. Director of Tourism Standards and Regulation Office Ms. Maria R. Bueno, Minister of the Philippine Embassy to China Mr. Ivan Frank Olea and Director of Education, Culture, Tourism Division (ECTD) of ACC Mr. Tri Purnajaya participated in the Workshop.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Maria R. Bueno praised ACC for co-hosting the Workshop in the Philippines. She said that China had been the largest outbound tourism market for 3 consecutive years and Chinese market had become the potential market for ASEAN countries, including the Philippines. The Department of Tourism of the Philippines considered this Workshop as an opportunity to enhance cooperation with its counterparts from ASEAN countries and China and with the tourism enterprises, conduct in-depth exchanges on the characteristics of Chinese tourism market and consuming habits of its travelers.

In his remarks, Mr. Tri expressed his appreciation for the support and arrangements from the Philippines in co-hosting the Workshop and also congratulated the Philippines for successfully convening the 23rd APEC Summit. He said the bilateral visit between ASEAN and China were nearly 18 million in 2014, among which the two-way visits between the Philippines and China were 1.37 million. In the first 3 quartors of this year, the two-way visits had increased by 16.4% and 2.7% respectively, which indicated a positive momentum for progress. He expressed his confidence that the tourism Workshop co-hosted by ACC and the Philippines Tourism Department would deepen the Philippine tourism industry’s understanding of the Chinese market, hence to provide better services to the tourists. He also briefed the participants on ACC’s unremitting efforts in promoting the functional cooperation between ASEAN and China in the areas of trade and investment, education, culture and tourism.

At the Workshop, four experts from Guilin Tourism University delivered lectures, and provided general information of the Chinese tourism development, the characteristics of its outbound travel market, e-commerce and tourism planning. The experts had an interactive discussion during the Q&A session with the participants, which was highly anticipated and well received by the local tourism industry.