ACC Organized Shanghai and East China’s Media and Travel Trade Group Visit to Laos and Thailand

From 13 to 20 September 2014, ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) organized a group of 12 media and travel trade representatives from Shanghai and East China to take part in a tour to visit some major tourist attractions and hotels in Laos and Thailand. The group visited the popular sites in Luang Prabang of Lao as well as both must-see and potential sites in Chiangmai and Bangkok of Thailand. With its well-developed infrastructure and easy accessibility, Thailand has been the most-visited destination in ASEAN for the Chinese travelers, while Laos is still in need of more support in terms of infrastructure development and marketing. The travel media and tour operators found that both countries had great potentials in attracting more Chinese travelers. Through this event, the stories and images of the two countries would be released by the Chinese media. New ideas to develop innovative products for the two destinations were also expected to emerge the visit. A combination of the developed destinations with the emerging ones in ASEAN is an ACC's endeavor to further promote people-to-people contact between ASEAN and China, which will bring about tangible benefits and boost the local as well as the regional economy.