August 29, 2018
Xinhua reports that the European Travel Commission (ETC) has agreed to provide around half of the €200,000 in funds that will be used for a promotional campaign withthe slogan "Experience Croatia, Feel Slovenia" aimed at the Chinese tourist market, running from October 2018 to Matrch 2019. This will see the tourist boards in both countries cooperating to raise their profile in this large and rapidly growing market, as explored in an earlier article “Recent Trends in Tourists from East Asia”, and shown in the figures below (from SURS).
The STA quoted the Slovenian Tourist Organisation (STO) director Maja Pak as follows: "With a projected 160 million trips in 2018, China is one of the most prospective global tourist markets."
The STO is currently working in the Chinese market through various B2B activities, such as tourism workshops, study tours for Chinese tour operators, and through hosting Chinese providers at the Slovenian Incoming Workshop (SIW).
Tourists from Asia most often visit Slovenia as part of a tour of the Western Balkans, and the ETC has found that in 58.5% of the cases they combine visits to Slovenia and Croatia.
Slovenia has seen steady growth in the number of Chinese tourists since 2005. Last year, a total of 62,919 Chinese tourists visited Slovenia, an increase of 42% compared to 2016.
