The Canada-China Tourism Year (CCTY) 2018 officially launched in Toronto, Canada on Wednesday, aiming to strengthen cooperation between the two countries and bring about more tourism flow and investment.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau sent congratulatory messages to the opening ceremony, which was held at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, reports Chinese news portal Xinhua.
“In 2017, we saw a record number of Chinese visitors in Canada,” Trudeau said, “and that is testament to the strong connections between the people in our two countries.
An estimated 750,000 Chinese tourists visited Canada in 2017 - a 23 percent increase compared to the previous year.
In 2016, 610,000 Chinese arrived in Canada - an increase of 24 percent year-on-year - making China the third-largest source of tourism for Canada after the UK and the US. Chinese tourists also spent nearly US$1.25bn, making them the second largest spenders behind the US.
The majority of trips by Chinese travellers involved visits to British Columbia or Ontario at least once. 50 percent of recreational tourists from China were aged between 35 and 54, with 26 percent of tourists travelling to Canada with children.
Adventure travel, polar exploration and road trips are currently the most popular programmes among young Chinese travellers in the north American country.
Canada has set itself a goal of doubling the number of Chinese tourists visiting the country by 2021. In order to achieve this, it recently opened seven new visa application centres in China to facilitate trips.
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