ChinaOB Daily: Norway, Sunnylands Retreat, Niagara Falls, Tasmania, Zimbabwe

Editor’s note: Last week we started a new daily roundup of news affecting outbound business, for countries trying to attract Chinese travelers. Follow all news from ChinaOB Daily.

• Chinese going to Norway in droves, but hate the hotels: Tourists from China spend more money than anyone else visiting Norway, but they’re also the least satisfied, Norway’s travel authorities have found. The Chinese seem to be most unhappy with hotel service levels, and with the food. The number of Chinese visitors at Norwegian hotels doubled in July last year from the year before.
• Niagara wants more Chinese visitors: Chinese tourists are visiting Niagara Falls, Ontario, but they’re not spending a lot of time in the Canadian Cataract City. Now, there is a push on to change that…Tourism leaders are making trips to China to meet with the hundreds of tour operators who arrange group travel, seeking longer stays.
• Obama-Xi Jinping Sunnylands summit fuels Chinese tourism interest: The Annenberg Retreat on the Sunnylands estate, the venue for last week’s summit in U.S. between President Xi Jinping and Barack Obama, could soon see more Chinese visitors…some Chinese travel agencies are negotiating with the retreat, in an attempt to develop tour projects.
• Tasmania sees surge of Chinese visitors: The latest Tasmanian Tourism Snapshot reveals a 10 per cent jump in visitors to the state during the 12 months to March 2013, including a 54 per cent increase in Chinese tourists and an almost doubling of visitors from Hong Kong.
• Indonesian region of Sabah working to get more Chinese tourists: Masidi also wants more Mandarin-speaking tourist guides to meet the expected increase in arrivals; more chartered flights and even Mandarin-speaking immigration officers at the airport to greet their arrivals.
• Zimbabwe: Tourist arrivals from China grew by 165%: China overtook Japan in terms of market share during Q1 of this year…This makes China the current largest Asian market for Zimbabwe.