The Crown Prince of Denmark has agreed to become the patron of the Danish-Chinese Tourism Year 2017. Its objective is to strengthen the cooperation between the two countries in the area of tourism.

The Tourism Year 2017 will consist of a number of events and initiatives in both China and Denmark, and it’s intended to increase the number of tourists who travel to both Denmark and China. Denmark is the first country in the EU to enter into the cooperation with China.

The Year was launched in a grand fashion in Beijing on Friday. The Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the event in which he wrote that he hoped that the two countries will make good use of the opportunity provided to strengthen friendship, deepen cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

The China-Denmark Tourism Year launched in Beijing on Friday as the two countries will try to market themselves as tourist destinations to each other’s population throughout 2017.  Brian Mikkelsen, Denmark’s Minister for Industry, Business and Financial Affairs said that “the country is honoured to become the first EU member state to celebrate the Year of Tourism with China,” and hoped that the “engagement can get people to experience each other’s culture, lifestyle, scenery and cuisine. We can see from some of the other nations with tourism-year agreements with China that they’ve experienced significant increases in Chinese tourists – during the tourism year, but particularly in subsequent years. And we know that the Chinese spend lots of money when they travel. So this is something that will benefit the traditional Danish tourism industry, but also the retail industry, in the long run.”

The amount of nights spent in Denmark by Chinese people tripled from 2008 to 2014, and in 2016, Chinese spent a total of 218,000 nights in Denmark, according to VisitDenmark, the national Danish tourism organisation. The Chinese people are expected to make a total of 127 million outbound trips this year, according to the China Tourism Academy. In addition, China is also celebrating a tourism year with Australia, Kazakhstan, ASEAN countries and Switzerland.