European tourism operators are busy in anticipation of the approaching China's Spring Festival, the first Chinese Lunar New Year after 25 European nations became Chinese tourist destinations last September.

London has quite a lot of overseas Chinese and Chinese descendants, so there are some celebrations for 2005, the year of the rooster, said Tom Wright, chief executive of British Tourism Administration. Besides, a milestone tourism memorandum was signed half a month ago, which will enable Chinese tourists to visit.

British Airways (BA) held a seminar to discuss the impact of tourism on aviation development after signing a tourism memorandum.

"We predict Chinese passengers to rise 15 percent to 20 percent each year," said Tim Ramage, president of BA China.

Not far from the Chinese New Year, 66 Italian businesses held a tourism workshop in Beijing, led by Piergiorgio Togni, general manager of Italian State Tourist Board.

"It is quite cold in Beijing, and we hope the citizens can escape and enjoy sunshine in Italy. Now many travel agencies have Chinese-speaking employees," said Togni. It is the first time that Italy has sought to promote its image here.

Spain, the world's second-biggest tourism nation, also vowed to attract Chinese tourists from the fastest-growing outbound market. The city of Madrid joined the promotion efforts.

"China's Spring Festival is very important to any famous tourism nation," said Richard Lees, general manager of Sino-European travel agency.

"Scandinavian nations hung out a Chinese version of introduction to skiing resorts, in order to attract Chinese customers who also favor sport on snow and ice," said Xuan Yan, representative of Scandinavian Tourism Board in Beijing.

Like Xuan, many representatives of foreign tourism boards can not enjoy a leisure holiday. Some of them have to fly back to the headquarters and teach local tourism operators how to receive booming Chinese tourists.

(China Daily February 4, 2005)