Italy sees Chinese tourists as emerging niche market

While more and more Chinese people come to visit Italy on vacation, Gioia Chin who used to guide Japanese tourists is determined to acquire the license this year to take Chinese tours.

Over the past decade, Rome only found one Italian Chinese having passed the examination. Chin, who has been living there for 24 years, aims to be "the next one".

"Many of my colleagues work in the daytime and take mandarin classes in the evening in the hopes of cashing in on the rising Chinese tourists inflow," said the employer of NEXT Tourism Agency.

In Venice, some peddlers even put up "Mandarin-speaking" signs to solicit Chinese customers. Mauro Vianello, an owner of a hand- craft workshop of Murano glass at the square of San Marco, could not wait to dazzle Chinese customers with a China-published guidebook highlighting his craftsmanship and unique design.

While Chinese tourists swarmed into Italy as much as Japanese did in 1970s, a new "niche market" was taking shape, noted Guido Castellini, manager of the ItaliaTurismo, a primary Italian property developer in the tourism-accommodation sector.

Keeping a close eye upon China's booming tourism industry, Castellini was sure that Italian tourism would bring opportunities to Chinese firms.

According to him, his company has planned to spend 300 million euros to develop nine holiday tour arenas in southern Italy. Upon their completion in 2009, these tourist places will receive two million travelers annually and created approximately 1,100 job opportunities.

With more than 31.02 million Chinese going abroad on vacation last year, China is the world's largest outward tourism market. So far, 124 nations and regions have become tourist destinations for the mainland Chinese citizens.

Although Italy is not one of them yet, the country boasting of more than 3,200 museums, 100,000 churches, 50,000 historical buildings, five million archeological cultural heritage and two- million-strong art works has become a tourist place of choice for many Chinese people.

Currently, Rome, Florence and Venice are the three cities most frequented by the Chinese.

"We hope to cooperate with Chinese peers to bring more of our history and cultural heritage out to the Chinese people," said Castellini.

To reach this goal, coordinator Alberto Bradanini of the Sino- Italian Government Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy, said that the governments of both countries must make concrete efforts to get "complex issues" resolved.

For instance, he said, the risk of Chinese tourists turning into illegal immigrants need to be addressed immediately.

Moreover, a fair trade on equal terms means that only after China opens its tourism market to Italian investors can Chinese firms act to expand their presence in Italy, he said.

Source: Xinhua