Dear readers,

During the first week of October 2020, eight percent of mankind is going on a leisure trip – in China. 600 million trips are expected to be taken in the combined National Day Golden Week and the Mid-Autumn holiday. “Revenge consumption” is showing its strength. 600 million trips is still below the 780 million trips recorded in 2019, but domestic flight bookings are up by 10% compared to last year, showing that more Chinese are visiting West and Southwest China as an “ersatz” international holiday. In Sichuan Province, for example, tourism revenue grew by almost 40% on October 1^st 2020 compared to the same day last year. Like attractions, China’s cinemas are also permitted again to run at 75% of their total capacity. The country’s total box office was reported as surpassing one billion yuan (125 mio. € / 150 mio. USD) during the first two days of the holidays.

With many destinations already opening their doors again for Chinese visitors, tests delivering results within minutes becoming available and vaccines hopefully following soon, all it needs is the stroke of a pen (or brush) to put an end to blanket quarantine for all Chinese returning from abroad (except Macau) and to unleash the next rush of outbound tourism as well.

Last week we already mentioned the CHINA SUMMIT, the major online conference and fair for Chinese outbound tourism in the last quarter of the annus horribilis 2020. The CHINA SUMMIT is co-organised by Buzz.travel and the GITF Guangzhou International Travel Fair (details at https://expo.buzz.travel). We would of course be especially happy if you could join the COTRI panel discussion next Tuesday Oct. 13, from 13:00 to 14:00 h German time (19:00 to 20:00 h China time). Your humble editor has the honour to chair a panel discussion which brings together Richard Adam, Gazmend Haxhia, Dr. Berenice Pendzialek and Dr. Rudy Snippe to discuss the future development of Chinese outbound tourism and especially the strategy, which COTRI in cooperation with the three male panel members has developed under the name of ADVANTAGE: TOURISM.

Participation is free wit a basic pass, however we recommend that you use the opportunities given by the different levels of advanced active participation provided by the “business” or the “VIP” pass or a sponsorship. Details can be found here: https://expo.buzz.travel/registration. Please mention COTRI when purchasing advanced passes.

And there is more for you: CTT China Tourism Training is the series of online trainings for different segments of the tourism industry COTRI has produced in cooperation with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Hotel and Tourism Management. Today a new weekly series of short video clips is starting, which will provide 88 examples from the CTT programme, showing parts of interviews, Best Practice examples, lectures, discussion and the CTT CoViD-19 Update, each ending with a useful hint about the right way of working with the Chinese outbound tourism market. Have a look at No. 1 of the 88 Handy Hints here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhJPQtVqcECeM8Gw6NTyBe9tMdA-r739G

The video clips will be released every Tuesday together with the COTRI Weekly.

Best wishes as always from Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt and the COTRI WEEKLY team!

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