The fierce competition to attract the attention of the growing Chinese tourist market has begun mercilessly in Latin America, specifically in Argentina and Venezuela.
In the last edition of Outbound IX Travel and Market (COTTM) 2013 held in China, the Ministry of Tourism of Venezuela managed to make trade agreements with companies and international media for the promotion and image positioning of the country ("Venezuela, Meet Your Destiny") in the Asian market.
Venezuela’s promotion focuses on the Orinoco axis (states of Bolivar, Delta Amacuro and Amazonas) and other attractions like nature, jungles, mountains, sun, beaches, shopping, gastronomy, history and national culture.
The COTTM, considered the largest platform for the tourism industry in China, was conducive to a better clarification of promotional alliances and agreements established with mass media specialized in Spanish, such as CCTV, Beijing TV and China Business Network.
Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru and Argentina also participated in this event with the firm intention of attracting the growing Chinese outbound market accounting for the tourism sector.
In fact, the Argentine Tourism Minister Enrique Meyer recently said that tourism from China increased by 18% over the previous year.
In this regard, he stated that: "Since the Chinese have permission to travel abroad, a few years ago, they began to move first for closer destinations, then to Europe and now they are doing it for America. In 2012, the increase amounted to 22 percent compared to 2011. ”
He stresses that a major point to consider is that tourists from that country "stand by consumption and are also demanding in terms of good services" and that many travel around during the weekend after completing the work for which they arrived.
In this regard, Minister of Tourism of the Dominican Republic, Francisco Javier García, said on several occasions: “There is interest in the Caribbean nation to capture this market, to the point of having made a trip a few months back, resulting in a series of agreements and commitments with entrepreneurs who showed interest in the DR.”
In fact, it is expected that very soon China will surpass Germany and the United States to become the world's largest source of tourists traveling abroad.
The China Tourism Academy located the final figures in about 70 million trips abroad by mainland Chinese in 2011, an increase of over 20% compared with 57.4 million trips made in in 2010.
In 2012, that figure was surpassed and it managed to reach 78 million Chinese traveling abroad, generating a record consumption of about U.S. $80,000 million.