Business and Knowledge: the Focus of the Promotional Tour in China

31-12-2018 | Turisme de Barcelona

In this last quarter of the year Turisme de Barcelona has focused on its promotional work in China, with a roadshow involving the collaboration of the Catalan Tourist Board (CTB), and fifteen companies in a campaign for the sector combining knowledge and business through various intelligence sessions, workshops and presentations in the cities of Shanghai, Chengdu and Guanzhou.

Under the umbrella of digitalisation, various workshops were held for tour operators and travel agents. In terms of learning, the Consortium gave two market intelligence sessions for the first time, and a course for Chinese travel agents with the China Travel Academy (CTA) through which it distributed content about Barcelona to the over twenty thousand agents certified on the platform.

China is still an emerging market for the Barcelona destination, but with very high growth potential and predictions that the country will reach 220 million international trips by 2025. A particular feature of this market is a change in tendency we are currently observing, from travelling as a group to travelling individually: over 55% now travel on their steam, especially millennials and young people. The average spending is twice as high as for other visitors, which has a very positive impact on the city's economy.

The Consortium attended the presentation of the new artificial intelligence Wifi translator launched on the tourism market by Baidu, the largest browser in China, and showed its willingness to collaborate with the group, which has over 80% market share.