CNTA Vice Chairman Du Jiang met with Paul Stocks, Deputy Chief Executive of New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) in Beijing on February 28. The two sides conducted in-depth exchanges on further strengthening bilateral tourism cooperation.

 

With the continuous development of China-New Zealand relations in recent years, the cooperation between the two countries in all fields has reached unprecedented breadth and depth, and tourism, as an important part of bilateral cultural exchange and pragmatic cooperation, has played an active role in promoting the development of the two countries' relations, Du said. Tourism cooperation between China and New Zealand has great potential and broad prospects thanks to big seasonal differences and strong complementarity of tourism resources of the two countries, he added. As a major event to be held in 2019, the “China-New Zealand Tourism Year” will play a positive role in deepening the cooperation between the two countries in the field of tourism, so he expressed the hope that both sides could work together to advertise Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities while continuing to publicize the famous tourist cities of the two countries so that bilateral tourism cooperation could be promoted to a new level.

 

Paul Stokes introduced the basic situation of New Zealand's tourism. New Zealand attaches great importance to the Chinese market as a major tourist source, and the upcoming “New Zealand-China Tourism Year” is an important result of pragmatic cooperation between the two countries, he said. With the Tourism Year as a good opportunity, both sides should enhance the publicity of tourism, promote people-to-people exchanges, and provide tourists with a high-quality travel experience, he continued, adding that New Zealand wants to receive more and more Chinese visitors.

 

Also present at the talks are officials of CNTA Department of Tourism Promotion and International Liaison, CNTA Department of Quality Standardization and Administration, China Tourism Academy from the Chinese side, and responsible persons of MBIE, Embassy of New Zealand in China, and Tourism New Zealand.

 

Before the talks, representatives of relevant departments of CNTA and their MBIE counterparts held the third conference of China-New Zealand Tourism Working Group.(Source: Department of Tourism Promotion and International Liaison)