Dear Readers,

as predicted, China’s international tourism is slowly restarting. Laos opened its borders for Mainland Chinese visitors, who need to show a negative test and have to stay 48 hours in quarantine. The first batches of holidaymakers arrived in Thailand, Japan announced to open for Chinese non-leisure visitors later this month etc. Hong Kong is not yet allowed to open the border with the Mainland again, but Macau welcomed almost one million Mainland Chinese visitors between July and October 2020. China Daily published an article by its London-based reporter Wang Mingjie last week titled Travel rebound fuels optimism (http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202011/03/WS5fa0abfea31024ad0ba82abf.html)

While the result of the elections in the USA can be seen as another source of hope for a more determined fight against the pandemic in that part of the world, the news about imminent vaccine approval applications by several companies is even more relevant to achieve firstly a swing of the public perception of the crisis and secondly a real decrease in the number of persons dying from CoViD-19.

Which confirms that the time is right now to prepare as a professional for the next wave of Chinese visitors with the CTT online trainings and as a destination to start a sustainable Chinese outbound tourism strategy with the Advantage: Tourism programme of COTRI.

If you allow your humble editor to end on a more personal note, a sigh of relief could be heard collectively in my hometown Berlin, which finally opened the new Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt airport with a slight delay of nine years and a tripling of the projected costs. Reflecting the ideas of architects about how airport should look like from about twenty years ago, it feels already old today especially if compared to airports in Asia. However, at least it will lay to rest the endless jokes (What do Mars and the Berlin airport have in common? In about 30 years mankind will land there). At the same time, the old West-Berlin Tegel Airport has closed, a structure my late father was involved in building it.

This week’s episode of 88 CTT Handy Hints for the Chinese Outbound Tourism Market concentrates on Local products – Authentic with a Chinese twist. It is released together with the COTRI Weekly. Have a look at Our YouTube

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

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