More than 50 Chinese tour operators are in Richmond this week at a convention aimed at helping them package North American tours for their clients.
About 120 tourism suppliers from across North America are attending the sixth annual Active America-China Travel Summit (AACTS) and the first one to be held outside the U.S.
The conference has official dinners with dignitaries and other functions but the heart of it are short 10-minute meetings arranged in advance and resembling a speed-dating function.
“There’s a great big room and appointments so a supplier will be able to arrange a meeting with a buyer,” said Tourism Richmond CEO Tracy Lakeman. “Meetings are only about 10 minutes long so you’ve really got to be good with your sales pitch.”
AACTS is similar to the Rendez-vous Canada international travel trade show, which takes place in May 27 through 30 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The difference is that AACTS, which is taking place mostly at the Sheraton Airport Hotel and involves only tour operators from China. Rendez-vous Canada, in contrast, will welcome tour operators from around the world.
Canada last year welcomed approximately 365,314 overnight Chinese travellers, which is a 22.3% increase over 2012, according to Statistics Canada. Those visitors injected more than $486 million into Canada’s economy.
The number of flights between Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and mainland China surged to 54 last summer, or 50% more than summer 2012. That bump came because each of the five airlines that service the route increased frequency.
Including Hong Kong, peak season flights between YVR and China touched 75.
China Southern Airlines CEO Wangeng Tan was in Vancouver last month to launch the first daily flights between YVR and China on Dreamliner airliners. He told Business in Vancouver in an exclusive interview that he is considering further increasing his Guangzhou-based airline’s flights out of Vancouver to 10 from 7 weekly starting in June.
