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A Pragmatic and Effective Journey


——Sidelights on the Visit of the MEP Delegation Xiao Lan At the invitation of CAFIU, a 6-member delegation of Members of European Parliament (MEP) led by Mr. István Ujhelyi, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN), and former Deputy Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly visited China on June 17-20, 2015. In Beijing, Mr. Qi Xuchun, Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and CAFIU Vice-President met with the delegation. CAFIU Vice-President Mr. Ai Ping was present at the meeting. Mr. Qi Xuchun briefed the delegation on the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy, the “One Belt and One Road” Initiative and China’s latest economic and social development, and expressed the hope to further strengthen mutual cooperation. Mr. Ni Jian, CAFIU Secretary-General presided over the “Workshop on China-EU Tourism Cooperation”, attended by the delegation as well as the representatives from China International Travel Service (CITS), China Youth Travel Service (CYTS), Air China, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines. Both sides explored ways and means to further promote China-EU tourism cooperation. The delegation also visited Sanya City, Hainan Province. Mr. Yue Jin, Executive Deputy Mayor introduced the latest developments in Sanya and the municipal government’s moves to push forward tourism development. The delegation listened to the presentation by some leading members of Sanya Tourism Development Commission on the status quo and prospect of tourism development in Sanya and made a field investigation on some tourist resources. Reunion in Beijing renews friendship Vice-President Qi Xuchun headed a CAFIU delegation to visit Hungary in June 2014. Mr. Ujhelyi, then Deputy Speaker of Hungarian National Assembly accompanied the delegation throughout the whole visit. They were very happy to meet again and talked in a warm atmosphere. Ujhelyi said to Qi emotionally, “you are a respected senior to me and I wish to call you ‘Elder Brother’”. Qi nodded with a smile. Both sides had broad consensus on China-EU cooperation. Vice-President Qi stressed that China attached great importance to the development of the comprehensive strategic partnership with EU, for this not only serves the fundamental interests of both sides, but also represents the common aspiration of the two peoples. Under the new circumstances, China and EU should energetically push forward economic, trade cooperation and cultural exchanges, thus laying a sound social foundation for friendly cooperation. As the world-famous cradle of civilizations, China and Europe boast long history and brilliant culture. Strongly interested in each other’s culture, China and Europe conducted cultural exchanges long time ago, dating back to the era of the old “Silk Road”. Vice-President Qi thanked Mr. Ujhelyi for heading the TRAN delegation to China to promote mutual tourism cooperation, adding that tourism is an effective way to carry out cultural exchanges and China-EU tourism cooperation enjoy broad prospects. For many Chinese, Europe is one of the most popular tourist destinations. European architecture, music and food are very attractive, and a large number of high-quality products are favored by Chinese customers. Winning the hearts of Chinese tourists means huge business opportunities. Vice-President Qi hoped that Mr. Ujhelyi would exert positive influence in his new position and contribute more to advancing China-EU tourism cooperation. Mr. Ujhelyi fully agreed with Vice-President Qi. He pointed out that Europe paid close attention to China’s development tendency and China’s “Belt and Road” Initiative would bring forth more opportunities to the world and also benefit European economic recovery. He hoped that China would join in the Juncker Plan and more Chinese companies would make investments in Europe. Mr. Ujhelyi pointed out that China’s “Belt and Road” Initiative would be a boon to tourism and would drive China-EU two-way tourism development. Europe would be happy to see more Chinese citizens traveling in Europe, because tourism was very important to EU economy, accounting for around 10% of the GDP. The purpose of this visit was to strengthen EU-China tourism cooperation and explore concrete ways and means to boost tourism cooperation with Chinese counterparts in the tourism sector. The delegation would take their opinions and suggestions as reference in policymaking and law amending. Professional dialogue promotes win-win cooperation At the “Workshop on China-EU Tourism Cooperation”, the delegation and Chinese participants discussed about main factors hindering China-EU tourism cooperation and solutions. They spoke one after another and aired views freely. The Chinese side pointed out that as a result of the improving living standard, the number of outbound Chinese tourists had been rising in recent years and the consumption level of Chinese citizens abroad ranked first in the world. Last year, the number of outbound Chinese tourists reached one hundred million. However, the number of Chinese tourists to Europe was merely 3.6 million, making up 3.6% of the total. This was not commensurate with China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership, and also indicated that there was still a lot to do in China-EU tourism cooperation. The Chinese side maintained that the major factor hindering the increase of Chinese tourists to Europe was the complicated visa application procedure and shortage of direct flights. The representatives from CITS and CYTS mentioned that after China reached visa facilitation agreements with the US, Canada, Australia, the number of Chinese tourists to these countries had increased rapidly whereas the increase of Chinese tourists to Europe this year fell short of the expectations, only maintaining the same level as in the past few years. The main reason behind this was the long and complex visa application process, increasing the expenses and time consumed in preparation for traveling to Europe. In view of the new visa policy the Schengen countries would adopt later this year, the Chinese side proposed that EU take some remedial measures, such as extending the visa expiration period, and setting up more consular offices in some second-tier cities like Urumqi and Hohhot, thereby reducing the cost for Chinese applicants. The representatives from the main big airline companies said that whether or not increasing new direct flights depended on a couple of factors. The visa problem, among other things, was a major element which could not be overlooked. The airline companies must do operation accounting when they were about to open up new air routes. Due to some uncertainties in the increase of passengers to European destinations, most airline companies still held a “wait-and-see” attitude. The representative from Hainan Airlines said frankly that rather than giving necessary support to Chinese airlines, a few European airports even placed some hurdles. The Chinese side hoped that Europe could take substantive measures as early as possible to provide more conveniences for Chinese citizens traveling to Europe. Mr. Ujhelyi noted that Europe was famous for its high-quality tourism industry for a long time. Europe noticed that in recent years the number of Chinese tourists to foreign countries had increased at a fast pace and hoped to gain a bigger market share. Yet due to some policy restrictions, each year EU lost several million potential tourists from emerging economies like China, Russia, India and Brazil. So the delegation would collect the opinions and suggestions of Chinese tourism professionals and try hard to push EU to change existing policies and regulations, thus promoting exchanges and cooperation in tourism between China and EU. In Hainan’s Sanya, the delegation held a discussion with the representatives from Sanya Tourism Development Commission and Sanya Tourism Association, learning about the status quo of Sanya’s tourism development and in particular its unique features. After the discussion and the field investigation on Haitang Bay Duty-free Shop and Yalong Bay Tropical Forest Zone，the delegation found out that Sanya enjoyed special advantages in developing the tourism industry, featuring diversified items, rich tourist resources, complete facilities and good-quality services. No wonder that it had the honor of “the holiday paradise”. As Mr. Ujhelyi said, the tourism development in Sanya demonstrated that on the whole the high-end tourism in China had been up to international standards and Sanya could be chosen by Europeans as one of the most favored holiday resorts. He would share his observations after going back and push the related departments to make policy changes so as to provide more favorable conditions for the expansion of China-EU two-way tourism. The short visit of the MEP delegation wound up very quickly. When saying goodbye to each other, everyone thought it was a fruitful visit and China-EU tourism cooperation had a bright future.