European tourism surges amid UEFA Championship, Olympic Games Paris 2024

China

European tourism surges amid UEFA Championship, Olympic Games Paris 2024

2024-07-02 16:53 Last Updated At：20:37

The UEFA European Football Championship and the Olympic Games Paris 2024 are boosting tourism from China to European countries, according to travel services.

Driven by these sports events, reservations for tourism products have witnessed a year-on-year increase of around 30 percent to 40 percent.

"The UEFA European Football Championship has also stimulated the tourism market in other European countries. Currently, hotel bookings in Italy have tripled compared to those last year through July. France, Spain, and the United Kingdom have also more than doubled," said Liu Ting, senior manager at the Public Affairs Department of a tourism platform.

Data from tourism platforms show that as more people travel to Europe, the prices of flight tickets and hotels have risen in varying degrees.

"It's a good time to book tourism products for August in Europe. For those planning independent travel to Europe in July, visa processing time for popular tourist destinations like Germany and France may be very short," said Li Mengran, media and public relations manager at a tourism group.

According to official statistics from visa application service provider VFS, the number of German visa applications from China increased by 16 percent from January to April this year, compared to the same period in 2019.

China-Kazakhstan logistics base handles over 530,000 TEUs over past decade

2024-07-04 16:27 Last Updated At：16:37

The China-Kazakhstan Logistics Cooperation Base, a flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has handled over 530,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo through China-Europe freight trains over the past decade.

Since the operation of the base in Lianyungang City of east China's Jiangsu Province officially started 10 years ago, it has operated 6,179 China-Europe freight trains in total, with up to 538,900 TEUs transported, according to the Nanjing Customs.

In the first six months of this year, 411,000 TEUs were handled at the base, soaring by 31.1 percent year on year.

At present, more than 80 percent of Kazakhstan's imports of daily consumer goods and exports of mineral products, grain and some other commodities transited through China are gathered and distributed here.

The China-Kazakhstan logistics base in Lianyungang City serves as an international hub for transport, transit, warehousing, logistics and trade between China and the five Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.