Back in January, Croatian Minister of Maritime Affairs, Transport, and Infrastructure Oleg Butković met in Beijing with Chinese Transport Minister Li Xiaopeng to discuss the cooperation between the two countries in the area of transport, including the possibility of introducing direct flights to Beijing from Croatia.

Since then, news of the Chinese interest in Croatia has not stopped circulating through the media - and it seems now that six Chinese airlines have also jumped on board.

Namely, Ex Yu Aviation reports that Chinese businesswoman Yu Jiang expressed the interest of six airlines at a press conference on Thursday. 

"One of the issues for Chinese tourists is that they have to transfer through another airport in order to get to Croatia. We are currently negotiating with several airlines over the introduction of nonstop services from China to Croatia. We have six carriers that are interested and I believe that we will be able to announce the first nonstop flights between our two countries very soon,” Yu Jiang said. 

Yu Jiang’s company will take over Hotel Zagorje in Kumrovec and has also cooperated with the Zagreb-based Chinese Southeast European Business Association (CSEBA). CSEBA has supported flights between Croatia and China for some time. 

"We discussed the possibility of Hainan Airlines introducing nonstop flights from China to Croatia, most probably to Zagreb. The launch of this service would boost the number of Chinese tourists to Croatia,” CSEBA said previously. 

Recall, until the end of last year, Hainan operated flights twice a week from Beijing to Belgrade, but after a little more than a year it discontinued them due to the low number of passengers. 

Zagreb Airport has also encouraged flights between the two countries and said that they were hoping to finalize talks with at least one Chinese airline thanks to the considerable interest of Chinese tourists in Croatia and the increasing number of Chinese investments in Croatia. 

Recall, Croatia welcomed over 233,000 Chinese travelers last year, which is a notable increase of 46.7% compared to 2018. 

To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

Croatian companies have a chance for further growth and more exporting should Croatia decide to deepen its business ties and cooperation with China, the country which is currently undertaking the mammoth task of constructing Pelješac bridge.

As Suzana Varosanec/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 31st of March, 2019, at the 8th Summit of heads of government of central and eastern European countries and China, which will be held from the 9th to the 12th of April in Dubrovnik, the "Dubrovnik Guidelines" document is expected to be adopted, which will lay out the activities in this format in the forthcoming phase.

The summit on the EU and China set to take place in the Belgian capital of Brussels on the 9th of April is expected with interest, and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang is coming to Croatia. There are bilateral talks between Keqiang and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on the agenda, as well as the signing of several already concluded bilateral agreements in Zagreb. In line with the things that are set to be dealt with and concluded at the summit, Croatia and China could strengthen their blossoming cooperation with as many as ten brand new agreements. Other major Croatian expectations for the strengthening of overall relations with China are also awaited with gritted teeth, with the greatest interest being expressed in the areas of infrastructure, tourism and SMEs.

After the construction of Pelješac bridge, which is being built by China's CRBC, will yet more new infrastructural advances, such as the modernisation of Croatia's railway system, soon come to pass? The plans are also for the Chinese and Croatian prime ministers to visit this huge construction site down in southern Dalmatia. The Chinese delegation will consist of around 250 members, and that isn't including the 300 business community representatives coming to the 9th business forum ''16 plus 1''.

A total of more than 700 entrepreneurs have been registered, and many opportunities are on offer to Croatian companies when looking at entering the giant Chinese market, meaning that the initiative is on them. B2B meetings can be arranged with the help of an application created by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), and as Croatia's SME coordinator, it will officially launch the 16 + 1 coordination mechanism for small and medium-sized enterprises. The major promise for Croatian companies which operate within a multitude of different sectors lies in exports when it comes to deeper cooperation in doing business with China.

Croatia's visibility for the Chinese is continually growing, by about fifteen percent annually, while the number of tourists from China has increased by an enormous 120 percent over the past two years alone. In 2019, a record 300,000 Chinese tourists are expected to visit Croatia, which is the fastest growing market in the whole of the Republic of Croatia.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business page for much more.

Click here for the original article by Suzana Varosanec for Poslovni Dnevnik

In Hotel Academia in Zagreb on March 14th 2019, the First Regional Conference on the Chinese Tourist Market will be held.

The topics which will be discussed at the conference will include the comparison of the Chinese tourists we see in Croatia and in the region these days and the Chinese tourists which are about to start arriving in the future, a look inside into the Chinese tourist market profile, some interesting case studies from the Croatian market and key steps in strategic planning for the Chinese market.

Another key topic which will be discussed is the important matter of translation, which is extremely important when it comes to Chinese tourists. Should the translations be creative or literal, how to reduce cost when creating multilingual content and what are the causes for bad translation - those are the topics to be discussed.

One of the keynote speakers at the conference will be the leading expert in the field of translation and internationalization of the tourist content, Joanne Chan from the IPPWORLD, a transcreation agency specialized in the field of travel, lifestyle and hospitality. She will discuss the language issues, but also try and bring closer to the tourism professionals in the region what the Chinese tourists want, what is most important to them when they travel outside China. In an interview with hrturizam.hr she explains that it's all about an authentic experience for them. They want to see how local people live, work and have fun.

You can apply to the Conference at the link here, and the people who should most be interested in what's going to be discussed at the conference are the owners and the managers of tourist agencies interested in the Chinese tourist market, online marketing agencies, market communications experts, tourist board directors (and people leading other public tourist organisations) etc. If you have any interest in the Chinese tourist market, you shouldn't miss this conference!

As Morski writes on the 26th of January, 2019, Minister Oleg Butković spent some time in Shanghai and Ningbo where he met with the representatives of the giant shipping company COSCO Shipping.

The Minister of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure also visited the port of Ningbo, the only port in the entire world which has shipped more than one billion tons of cargo, a statement from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs said.

In Shanghai, the Croatian delegation led by Minister Oleg Butković met with representatives of COSCO Shipping, a well respected shipping company that owns the world's largest fleet, as well as the third-largest fleet of specialised container ships.

On the same day, a meeting was held in Ningbo with representatives of the port of Ningbo Zhoushan, the port that, for the very first time, shipped over one billion tons of cargo in 2018, making it the only port in the entire world to do so. During the visit of the Croatian delegation of which Butković was a leading part, the data from the huge Chinese port showed how it has dealt with a massive 2,103,683 containers since the beginning of the year.

The visit to the port of Zhoushan was completed by visiting two of the most significant container terminals and meeting with leading port operators, which was an opportunity to exchange experiences with the Port of Rijeka's administration and talk about the projects they are preparing, whereby a clearly mutual desire for further cooperation was expressed.

The visit to Shanghai and Ningbo Zhoushan marked the end of the official visit of Minister Oleg Butković, who has been spending time in the People's Republic of China since January the 20th, and where he held a series of meetings with the aim of exchanging experiences between the two countries in the area of ​​transport infrastructure, and further enhancement of mutual cooperation.

Make sure to stay up to date with Croatia's political scene by following our dedicated politics page. If you're interested in Croatia's deepening relationship with China, give our business page a follow.

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