AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Tourism Information Session was held in New Zealand's largest city Auckland on Wednesday.

The session was jointly hosted by the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand, the Chinese consulates general in Auckland and Christchurch, the China cultural centers in Wellington and Auckland, and organized by China Travel Service New Zealand.

Wang Xiaolong, Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, said that tourism plays a unique role in improving the understanding between the people of New Zealand and China and "thus bringing us closer."

This year, the Chinese government has adopted a range of measures covering visa, payment, flight, and accommodation to improve the travel experience for overseas tourists. Following the successive measures introduced by the Chinese government, particularly since the implementation of more unilateral visa-free policies, a growing number of foreigners have opted to travel to China, said Wang.

"Meanwhile, Chinese tourists are also enthusiastic about traveling to New Zealand. According to Statistics New Zealand, as of May this year, New Zealand received 226,000 Chinese tourists, up by 336.7 percent year-on-year. This fully demonstrates the strong desire from both sides for more people-to-people interactions and two-way travel," he added.

David Carter, former speaker of the New Zealand Parliament, who has visited China many times for both official and personal reasons, shared with the participants his experience of traveling in Beijing with his family in April this year. In just two days, he and his family used shared bikes through Alipay and rode to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Wangfujing, Beihai Park and other attractions. The transportation in China turned "very easy" thanks to the Alipay.

Data from Alipay shows that in the first half of this year, the amount of money spent by inbound tourists using Alipay increased by 8 times year-on-year. Among them, the amount of money spent by inbound tourists from countries that do not require a visa to come to China or have mutual visa exemption with China increased by 15 times year-on-year in the first half of the year.

Xu Tong, director of the China Cultural Center in Wellington, said that since the end of the pandemic, China and New Zealand have opened and resumed a number of direct flights, which has facilitated personnel exchanges between the two sides and benefited the development of tourism. Currently, six cities in the Chinese mainland have opened direct flights to New Zealand, with 50 flights per week, exceeding the pre-pandemic record.

Air China's Auckland office said that starting this winter, Air China's Auckland-Beijing direct flights are planned to gradually increase from the current four flights per week to one flight per day to meet the growing demand of passengers.

The China Cultural Center in Wellington introduced China's inbound tourism facilitation measures to nearly 200 New Zealand participants from various sessions. China Travel Service New Zealand and the China Cultural Center in Auckland promoted a number of routes such as the Chinese Cultural Heritage Exploration Route and the Yangtze River National Tourism Route.

Chinese cultural and tourism institutions displayed Chinese culture such as tea art, paper cutting, and Chinese martial arts, and exhibited a variety of tourism products and characteristic cultural and creative products. Before the session, the "Glory of Millennia Silk Road Photo Exhibition" was held. Enditem

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