文丨本刊记者 李雪松 张鹏

 

Mr. Eduardo Santander, Executive Director of European Travel Commission

“So I think the challenge for Chinese hotels in Europe is to become more European.”   “For destination in China, the most important thing is to be well-known. Because many places in China are not well-known for western world. In Europe, most people know about Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong. But they don’t basically know those like Xi’an, Guilin, Dalian, etc. So the challenge is to establish a quality advertising toward the second tier cities in Europe too. Because the European don’t know China yet.”   “For me, the most rewarding experience is ‘understanding others makes more peace in the world’. There is less confrontation and more understanding. Understanding and peace is the basis for business. If you don’t have trust, you cannot do any business.”

 
Editor’s note: On 10 May 2017, it was the first day for ITB China (an international famous show first debut in China). A lot of countries and regions tourism bureaus or associations send representatives to attend and exhibit on this exposition. The journalists of World Hotel Magazine got the opportunity to have an interview with Mr. Eduardo Santander, Executive Director of European Travel Commission on Europe Stand in this show. He talked a lot about the hotel industry and travel destinations both in China and Europe. Below is the original content.
   
World Hotel: Please talk about European Travel Commission in details. Including its history, current situation and its development direction in future.
 
Eduardo Santander: ETC is an association which was founded in 1948. This has been almost 70 years old. This association is a nationalized organization bureau. Our main aim is to promote Europe in third markets - in markets out of Europe like China, Japan, US, Canada, Latin America. We have three fields of work - market, research, marketing and forecasting. We combine them to facilitate travel to Europe, to have more people coming to our destinations.
 
World Hotel: What is your special mission on this attendance of ITB China? In other words, what kind of goal do you need to reach in this trip that can be called to meet your expectation?
 
Eduardo Santander: China is now the most important market for Europe. The global need for China is not the global need for arrivals. But the global expenditure is very important for European destinations. So we need to adapt the very need of Chinese market. The main aim for being here in China is to help tourism business in Europe to adapt to the Chinese market. 
 
World Hotel: What is the difference between European tourism market and Asian tourism market, especially compared to China tourism market?
 
Eduardo Santander: It’s very different. Because in Europe, everything is very fragmented, is very diverse. Every country is of different language. It’s a different way of doing things such as different transportation. What we try is to link all these destinations through domestic approach like golf. It could be heritage, it could be wine, it could be shopping. This is very important because China is very centralize also in a way its tourism is managed. So that make us very different compared to Europe.
 
World Hotel: Can you show some data on the outbound and inbound visitors of Europe? How many Chinese visitors?
 
Eduardo Santander: Ok. You see that for China, since 2007, it has been increasing, increasing and increasing. Last year, the arrivals is incredible figure of 94 million arrivals all around the world. And the Europe is 13% of it. You see it is a little bit. So we (Europe) want to grow here.
 
You see the increasing internationalizing, from 2007 and 2017, plus 165% increase here. The destinations are most busy which are France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, Switzerland, Spain, The Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Denmark.  
World Hotel: How do you get such data?
Eduardo Santander: We have our data base and we share with UNWTO.
 
World Hotel: About the hotel industry. Please talk about the similarity and difference between European market and China market.
 
Eduardo Santander: It is very similar for both of the two. For China, there are a lot of Chinese chains and western chains. But in Europe, we have a lot of family-owned hotels, very little enterprises with 20-40 rooms. They are very little hotels too. 85% of the hotels are small and medium enterprises. In China, most of the hotels are normally very big. They belong to Chinese like Jinjiang, Shangri-la, and American Hilton or Accor, the French company.
 
World Hotel: Currently, how many hotel groups in Europe that are very popular? Please name a few of them. And could you please talk about their current operation state in detail?
 
Eduardo Santander: The most important one in Europe is Accor, IHG, Marriott’s Starwood. Their operation is very standardizing. The hotels develop very quick to the new travelers. Many many hotels adapt to Chinese travelers because the most important thing is to have hot water, Chinese breakfast, Chinese-speaking staff, etc. One of the things we are seeing in hotel industry is that the hotels are adapting very quick to new travelers.
 
World Hotel: In recent years, many Chinese hotel groups output hotels in Europe, such as HNA and Wanda, etc. Could you please talk about the situation of China background hotels in Europe?
 

Eduardo Santander: The Chinese are taking step by step the premium locations in Europe too. For the time, many Chinese hotels are based close to airports. They cover almost 80% to Chinese clients. But they want now expand more and more to city centers instead to be in the surrounding of the city.
 
World Hotel: Compared to local hotels, what is the strength for each of them?
 
Eduardo Santander: The clients are very different. Chinese chains in Europe are very driven by Chinese clients too. So they are not very mix too. So I think the challenge for Chinese hotels in Europe is to become more European.
 
The loyalty is also important for Chinese and European clients. Chinese service is very famous which is very different to the European one.So I think both the European and the Chinese are learning each other,we are trying to find an high endo  something needs to be done.We are not Chinese and not European, but Sino-European, the both.
 
World Hotel: In your eyes, what elements should a successful travel destination must have? Is the airline coverage the most important element for it?
 
Eduardo Santander: In general, the most important thing for destination is to offer satisfaction to the clients meaning seamless attractive experience like safe experience and to remember. This means they have to cover experts like security, safety, travel communication. They have to well connect to airports or to the train station, they have to be accessible. And also in Europe, it’s very important to be sustainable. They have to demonstrate to the clients they are doing something for the future too.
 
For destination in China, the most important thing is to be well-known. Because many places in China are not well-known for western world. In Europe, most people know about Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong. But they don’t basically know those like Xi’an, Guilin, Dalian, etc. So the challenge is to establish a quality advertising toward the second tier cities in Europe too. Because the European don’t know China yet.
 
World Hotel: In future, where are the key travel destinations you will promote? Are they the massive tourism cities like Paris or Rome, etc.?
 
Eduardo Santander: We cannot forget that many Chinese people come to Europe to see the big cities like Rome, Paris, etc. We cannot forget that many Chinese people would like to see those destinations. But we are also trying to show that the second tier and the third tier destinations in Europe can make experience for the travelers.
 
World Hotel: In future, do you plan to have deep cooperation with Chinese enterprises?
 
Eduardo Santander: Yes. We are linking to Chinese operators here. We are with governments of CCTV, with the European Tourism Academy with CNTA, Finance like Olympia, Travel Industry like Ctrip, Tuniu, Tripadvisor, and Social Media with WeChat. We have corporations agreement with them.
 
World Hotel: What is the content of the cooperation? Please talk about it.
 
Eduardo Santander: It is very important because we are trying to bring more Chinese to travel in Europe. We need to cooperate with these industries which are well established. Also for European, we have also operate those from Europe too. So it has to be balanced. We do marketing with them like advertising, campaigns or shows together. For instance, for Ctrip we are now organizing a big campaign on Europe. 
 
World Hotel: For past years in this industry, can you talk about your feeling toward your career? Share with us some of your unforgettable stories?
 
Eduardo Santander: Yes. The most important thing for me is “traveling makes you a better person”. Because you get to know many different nationalities, very different countries, very different customs. We will see well the life in the world we live. For me, the most rewarding experience is “understanding others makes more peace in the world”. There is less confrontation and more understanding. Understanding and peace is the basis for business. If you don’t have trust, you cannot do any business.