Downtown Mexico City. Credit: 123rf
THE Pacific Alliance, comprising Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia, has staged their first-ever roadshow in Greater China, touring the cities of Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and Beijing this week to meet with potential tourism and trade partners.
Logging a 29 per cent growth in Chinese visitors last year, Rosana Guinea, Peru’s incoming tourism coordinator for Asia and Oceania, told TTG Asia e-Daily: “It’s a big growth and we hope to establish contacts. In terms of target markets, we are eyeing FITs and selected visitors so definitely not the mass market.
“MICE is also on our wish list as a new convention centre with a capacity for 10,000 (pax) just opened and it is branded as the newest facility in South America.”
Speaking at the Global Tourism Economic Forum (GTEF), Sandra Howard Taylor, vice minister of commerce, industry and tourism of Colombia, revealed plans to market the four Pacific Alliance countries as a multi-destination package, with each nation offering a different experience.
“For Colombia, we have a strong presence in tradeshows held in Europe but not in Asia yet. Therefore, we may increase awareness by participating in more trade events and this sales mission could possibly be regular practice,” she added.
Based on UNWTO/GTERC’s 2015 annual report on Asian tourism trends, it identifies both Asia and Latin America as the two regions with the largest propensity for growth. In fact, outbound traffic from Asia is still considered nascent.
In 2014, Mexico was the leading destination for Asia’s travellers, attracting 340,000 visitors from the region last year. Peru is another popular pick with 163,000 arrivals from Asia, while Chile’s count is lower with about 100,000 visitors last year. Figures for Colombia were not available.
