By Akram Medhat
Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of Tourism, held a meeting with China's CTRiP, the largest provider of online travel services, offering booking, accommodation, transport and tour services, with a share of up to 80% of the Chinese market, on the sidelines of her participation in the 19th WTTC Global Summit 2019 of the World Travel and Tourism Council in the city of Seville in Spain.
The meeting discussed ways to stimulate and increase inbound tourism to Egypt from China, and mechanisms of cooperation to promote Egypt in the Chinese market, which has a special nature and its own social media sites such as WeChat and Weibo.
During the meeting, the minister pointed to the new and growing horizons of cooperation in relations between Egypt and China in all fields, including tourism, stressing the importance of the Chinese market as one of the most promising markets for Egyptian tourism, and pointing to the growth in the number of Chinese tourists coming to Egypt.
The company presented its proposals on ways of cooperation and the services it can provide to the ministry, as it has an accurate database on tourist segments that can be used in promotion and in targeting different segments of tourists.
In a related context, Dr. Rania Al-Mashat met Terry von Bibra, General Manager for European markets at China's "Alibaba" Group, one of the largest companies offering online services in the world, to discuss ways of cooperating with them.
It was agreed to hold a meeting between the group's representatives and the Egyptian Tourism Federation to discuss mechanisms of cooperation regarding dealings on the AliPay site or platform, a site belonging to the "Alibaba" Group and one of the most important online payment sites in the world, whose users reached 870 million in 2018, and which accounts for more than 50% of the Chinese market in this field.
