Changing Travel Trends in China-CEEC Perspective

In June 2011, Wen Jiabao Prime Minister attended the China-CEEC Economic and Trade Forum in Budapest, what was a successful meeting between the People’s Republic of China and 16 Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), as a result of this forum, next year the 17 Prime Ministers met in Warsaw, Poland to establish the China-CEEC Cooperation. Since then, the prime ministers of the 17 countries have met every year in one of the participating countries of this network. The new multilateral relationship has brought new opportunities for the participating countries in almost all areas, but especially in tourism. Beside the High-Level Summit, they held China-CEEC High-Level Conference on Tourism Cooperation and the China-Central Eastern European Countries Tourism Cooperation and Exchange Conference to discuss the possibilities of cooperation.

Tourism is one of the most successful fields of the cooperation between China and the CEE countries in the past ten years. From 2012 to 2019 the tourism between China and the CEE region had been increasing rapidly, also thanks to that tourism is one of the fastest developing economic sector of the People’s Republic of China. As a result of the China-CEE cooperation, we can realize that in the past 10 year there is a huge increase in the number of the Chinese tourists entering the CEE region, and a fast development of the tourism cooperation between China and the CEE countries: in 2011 there were 500 thousand Chinese tourists arriving in the CEE region, the number was tripled by 2019, altogether 1,5 million Chinese tourists visited the CEE countries. Concerning the China-CEE cooperation, several direct flights were opened, that is supporting the tourism between China and the CEE region. From the V4 countries there are direct flights not only to Beijing, the capital city of China, but also to Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu etc. In the past 10 years, tourism ties between China and the CEE countries became more solid and stronger, what’s more both sides have realized a number of benefits from tourism developing. The China-CEE Cooperation ensured a huge support for the coordinated development of tourism between the two regions.


In 2022, on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of China-CEEC tourism cooperation the China – CEEC’s Tourism Coordination Centre, the Eurasia Center of John von Neumann University and the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry of Hungary has designed a research competition focusing on China-CEEC tourism cooperation. In this volume presenting the best research papers of the international participants about the development, challenges and achievements reached so far in the last ten years and further possibilities ahead.

Unfortunately, the years of 2020 and 2021 are significantly influenced by the pandemic having a backlashing effect on tourism. Hopefully, in 2022 the life of tourism will get back to how it was before the pandemic and also the China-CEE cooperation on tourism can be continued, the more it can become one of the success stories of the China-CEE cooperation. Also hope that this volume can help to reboot the tourism between China-CEE countries.