TOURISM stakeholders from China’s Hubei province are looking at how they can better sell the destination, which is undergoing positive developments in both products and access.
Five tourism groups from Hubei visited the UN World Tourism Organization headquarters in Madrid last weekend and made contact with officials from the regional and city governments in Spain.
Qian Yuankun, director-general of the Hubei Tourism Administration, said: “By bringing these tourism entrepreneurs with us to make contacts in Spain, we are setting up a two-way tourism promotion that should help companies in both Hubei and the Spanish regions. It’s a good way to see how to sell ourselves internationally.”
He said the new culture-centric The Han Show will open soon in a purpose-built, lantern-shaped theatre in Hubei’s capital city of Wuhan this December.
Links to Wuhan have also been growing. “Moscow became the second European capital after Paris to be linked with direct flights from Wuhan in July,” said Qian. “We are hoping there will soon be more. New high-speed train links within China are also helping us to develop our tourism very fast.”
China is also currently training up more Spanish-speaking guides, he pointed out.
Yin Hanning, chairman of the Hubei International Cultural Exchange Association, said Spain has a “rich experience in the internationalisation of tourism”.
“That is why we want to promote these interchanges,” he added.
