Chile and Trip.com Group to build on strong ties

Trip.com Group Chairman and Co-founder James Liang today met with Chile Minister of Economy, Develop and Tourism Lucas Palacios Covarrubias in the capital of Santiago to discuss opportunities for further collaboration in the tourism sector.

The discussions follow the initial signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Chile and the leading online travel agency (OTA) in 2018, aimed at improving the visibility of destinations in the Latin American country and expanding offerings to travellers on the company's platforms.

Since inking the agreement with Trip.com Group, which reaches 400 million users worldwide on its platforms, including 300 million users in Mainland China alone, Chile has seen a significant boost in Chinese arrivals, with three-digit growth year-on-year (YoY) in 2019. During last October's National Day holiday period, Chile topped Latin American destinations, with Trip.com Group recording over 300% YoY growth in Chinese arrivals.

"Chile welcomes tourists with open arms, and Trip.com Group continues to be an invaluable partner in sharing the unique offerings of our part of the world with Chinese travellers," said Chile Minister of Economy, Development and Tourism Lucas Palacios Covarrubias.

Home to world-famous wine, cuisine and natural scenery, Chile has no shortage of selling points for the leisure traveller. Distance, accessibility and cost, however, have in the past presented obstacles to developing the inbound tourism industry. Building on the partnership, today's talks are an initial step towards a collaboration aimed at improving Chile's capacity to host Chinese tourists.

"Chinese tourists have a growing appetite for in-depth and experience-oriented travel," said Trip.com Group Chairman James Liang. "As an exotic Latin American destination, Chile possesses a wealth of potential to become a favorite longer-stay in depth holiday hotspot, or a core part of regional itineraries."

According to Trip.com Group statistics, over 70% of Chile-bound tourists stay in the region for more than 8 days, and its most popular itineraries are Antartica-oriented. In addition to streamlining visa application processes to break down logistic barriers to travel, Liang said that an improvement in the prevalence of English signage and local transport infrastructure would play an important role in driving growth in tourist numbers across the country.

"Chile-bound Chinese tourists currently favor Santiago, Easter Island, and the Punta Arenas. With improvements to accessibility and visibility on our platforms, Chile has the potential to attract in-depth tourists all across the country, and be at the centre of longer Latin American itineraries." (Source: Trip.com Group)