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Shanghai: The federal government is trying to restore $12.4 billion in annual tourism business by urging Chinese travellers to return to Australia, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rebuilds relations with an official visit to Shanghai and Beijing.
Albanese will use a major tourism event in Shanghai to highlight the stronger relationship to 420 business chiefs who are crucial to the travel and tourism trade.
The federal government is hoping to restore the country’s tourism business by encouraging Chinese travellers to return to Australia.Credit: Tamara Dean
About 1.4 million Chinese travellers visited Australia each year before the pandemic, but the business has been slow to recover from the COVID-era travel bans in both Australia and China.
Tourism Australia, which is hosting the event for Albanese and Trade Minister Don Farrell on Sunday, estimates the visitor numbers in August were 50 per cent of the numbers before the pandemic.
About 58,000 travellers visited in August, the government agency says, and most of them were tourists rather than people visiting family members. The Chinese government approved group tours in August.
The theme of the Tourism Australia pitch to Chinese travellers is “Come and say G’day” and is being advertised to the Chinese market.
One challenge for the tourism trade is the restriction on airline capacity, which is 86 per cent of what it was before the pandemic.
Most flights to and from Australia are operated by China Southern, China Eastern and Air China. Qantas resumed flights to Shanghai last Sunday.
Albanese will meet the tourism industry chiefs in Shanghai, including companies that promote and book travel to Australia, before attending the opening session of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
In a sign of the warming relationship between Australia and China, the prime minister had a private dinner with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday night, shortly after arriving in Shanghai.
In brief remarks after that dinner, Albanese said it was “wonderful” to be in China as the first prime minister to visit in seven years.
“We must cooperate with China where we can, we will disagree where we must, but we will also engage in our national interest,” he said.
“It is in Australia’s interests to have a positive and constructive and open and respectful dialogue with our major trading partner. And that’s what I hope to achieve over the coming days.”
Albanese will hold further meetings with Li before a formal meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday.
After speaking to the Tourism Australia event on Sunday, the prime minister will tour the expo to talk to some of the 250 Australian exporters who are exhibiting at the event.
The exhibitors include Lark Distillery of Tasmania, Tamar Valley Fruits, Austral Fisheries, Blackmores and Sanitarium.
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