Tour East, China’s Taobao.com sign historic agreement

Tour East Group president Annie Tsu signed an historic agreement with two Chinese partners, Dynasty Tours and Taobao.com, yesterday (March 7) which will see Taobao.com, the largest e-commerce site in the world with more than 200 million members and the Chinese equivalent of e-bay, feature and sell Canadian tour packages designed by Tour East Holidays and Beijing-based Dynasty Tours. Thanks to the agreement, Tour East becomes the first Canadian travel company able to sell its Canadian tour products directly to Chinese consumers under the Dynasty Tours brand. Canada, which was one of the last countries to be given ADS (Approved Destination Status) by the Chinese government, lags far behind other countries when it comes to attracting Chinese tourists. While Australia lured more than 400,000 Chinese tourists in 2011, Canada attracted less than 14,000 Chinese visitors last year under the ADS guidelines. “China is the most web savy country in the world so it makes sense to present Canadian tourism in a format that Chinese tourists employ most when making their travel decisions,”said Tsu at a press conference in Beijing. “Four of the 10 tours we’ve designed to Canada for the Chinese market are aimed directly at China’s affluent travellers. That’s another first, because until now most tours to Canada have not included some of the unique things which you can only experience in our great country.”By 2013, it is estimated China will have well over 300 million affluent or upper middle class consumers. Almost 100 million Chinese travelled abroad in 2011.