Travel agencies make contingency plans, adjust itineraries
Recent terrorist attacks in Western Europe are a major concern for Chinese tourists, and many have chosen to cancel trips to the region, the manager of a major Chinese travel agency told the Global Times Tuesday.
On Monday night local time, a teenage Afghan refugee armed with an axe and knife injured four people on a train in southern Germany before being shot dead by police, the BBC reported.
The incident happened just few days after a truck ploughed through a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French city Nice Thursday night local time, and killed at least 84 people.
After the incident in Nice, a popular tourist destination in the south of France, Chinese tourists are increasingly leaving France out of their European itineraries, Xu Xiaolei, manager of marketing at China CYTS Tours Holding Ltd, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"In general, the number of tourists traveling to the countries affected will decline for one to two months after such attacks," Xu said, noting that he has seen the number of trips to countries such as France and Belgium fall about 30 percent compared with the same period in 2015.
"These unexpected events have led to increased uncertainty, which is seen as a 'cancer' for the tourism sector," Xu said.
Before terrorist attacks hit Paris in January and November 2015, the most frequent question from Chinese tourists was how best to protect their belongings from pickpockets while abroad, he noted.
"But now, everyone wants to know if they should cancel their trip to Paris, and whether it is safe to travel there," Xu said.
"We have introduced an emergency system including sending notices to travelers as soon as any incident occurs and helping cancel their trips without any charges," Xu noted.
In 2015, the number of Chinese tourists to Europe increased 32 percent on a year-on-year basis, according to a post on the China National Tourism Administration's (CNTA) website in March, which cited data from the Vienna-based European Cities Marketing.
A post on the CNTA's website on Tuesday said France remains the biggest tourism destination in the world, and tourism volume between China and France exceeded 2.6 million last year, a record high. By 2020, the number will double, according to the post.
Other domestic travel agencies have developed contingency plans for helping customers involved in such incidents.
For example, during the attempted Turkish military coup at the end of last week, Chinese online leisure travel specialist Tuniu Corp had 95 customers in Turkey, according to a document the company sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, there were 50 tourists booked on its website heading to Turkey before July 22, and the company will give them a full refund if they cancel their trips, the company said.
