COTRI Chinese Tourist welcome training sessions taking place all over the world.
HEIDE – With more than 97 million border crossings in 2013 putting China clearly ahead of Germany and the USA as the No. 1 global tourism source market, more and more tourism service providers are seeing the necessity to prepare themselves better for the needs and demands of Chinese visitors.
In recent months, several hundred front staff and managers of companies and destination marketing organisations from Finland to Mauritius, from Italy to New Zealand and from the United Kingdom to the island of Reunion graduated as “Chinese Tourist Welcome Quality Host”’s having participated in trainings provided by COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute and its COTRI Country Partners.
The “CTW Chinese Tourist Welcome” Training Programme is part of the training and quality assurance offered by COTRI, the leading independent China outbound institute in the world. It has been endorsed by PATA Pacific Asia Travel Association and recently included in the recommended activities of the “GREAT China Welcome” programme of VisitBritain. Likewise in Finland, Haaga-Perho, the Finnish official tourism training institute promotes CTW Training. The trainings were conducted by the COTRI Country Partners Capela Training in England, Toolbox in Finland, Rossetto Solutions in Italy and Vation in New Zealand.
Among the private sector participants, LUX hotel group, a leading provider of luxury resorts in the Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius and Reunion, gave more than 200 employees of all levels a full day’s leave from their usual duties to participate in CTW Training conducted by COTRI’s director Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt.
The main content of all CTW Trainings is identical and based on the many years of COTRI’s research activities, but with the help of the COTRI Country Partners the content each time is adapted to the local situation. In New Zealand outdoor activities are the focus of attention, whereas in Finland individual visitors are prioritised and in Mauritius luxury tourism is given more attention.
Feedback from participants has been consistently positive: “Eye-opener!”, “Just what we needed”, “Clear answers to many questions, clarification of many misunderstandings”, “A base to build decisions on” are among comments received. The next CTW trainings are already scheduled and a number of participants are moving onto the next step of the CTW programme by applying for the CTW Quality Label, for which the successful completion of the training is one of the prerequisites.
CTW Trainings are offered in more than 30 countries and regions on all continents as face-to-face trainings. For the remaining areas an online version is available. Tourism service providers working in several countries such as hotels, airlines or retailers are therefore able to create an unified systematic training programme for all their units, representing an offer that no other organisation apart from COTRI offers worldwide.
Prof. Dr. Arlt, director of COTRI: “Chinese tourists are getting more and more demanding. They are well aware of the fact that the whole world is chasing their purchasing power, so they insist on being treated with respect and special attention. Without training, product adaptation and a deep understanding of the demand structure it is not possible to satisfy the specific needs of this important source market.”
COTRI at ITB 2014 (March 5-9): Hall 11.1 Stand 107.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
