China's Shanxi Province seeks to intensify tourist and cultural exchange with Croatia

The Culture and Tourism Department of China's Shanxi Province, in cooperation with the Croatian-Chinese Friendship Society, in Zagreb on Friday organised a conference on cultural and tourism cooperation between the province and Croatia at which both sides expressed a desire to intensify their cooperation. The conference was organised as part of activities marking 2019 as the year of cooperation between China and Croatia.

It brought together over a hundred representatives of the Chinese province's tourism and culture sector, the Chinese Embassy, the Croatian Tourist Board, the Tourism Department of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce and Croatian travel agencies. Before the conference, several travel agencies held a meeting with potential Chinese partners and some of them signed cooperation agreements.

He Zhiyong, the managing director of a Shanxi-based travel agency, said that Croatia was very attractive to Chinese tourists.

"This is my third time in Croatia and I am doing all I can to establish business cooperation with one of Croatian partners, because tourists from our province want to come to Croatia. And we are telling them that they should go not just because of beaches and islands, but also because of Croatia's rich culture and history, which is also very attractive," he said.

He said that he did not have a deal with any Croatian travel agency yet, but believed that this would change soon and Croatian tourists would soon come to Shanxi to enjoy its historical and cultural attractions.

Tourism consultant Dubravka Davidovic said that today's conference followed up on the 16+1 strategy to increase tourist cooperation between China and 16 Central and Eastern European countries.

"Since this is the year of cooperation between China and Croatia, we believe that we will have a lot more tourists from China this year than we have had so far, as was the case in other countries," Davidovic said, adding that some countries that hosted 16+1 meetings had seen fivefold increases in the number of Chinese visitors.

Shanxi Province is situated on the Loess Plateau in northern China.

It has 271 cultural landmarks under state protection, which accounts for 11.5 percent of all such landmarks in the country.

Many of the historical sites are included on the UNESCO world heritage list, including the Terracotta Army, a collection of terracotta sculptures of warriors dating from approximately the late third century BCE. (Hina)

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