(Yicai) May 21 -- The Chinese delegation of travel agency leaders and industry representatives to the 44th Australian Tourism Exchange in Melbourne later this month is the largest purchasing team to take part in Tourism Australia’s annual trade event, as Australia looks to revive tourism between the two nations.

A team of 151 Chinese travel experts and industry insiders will take part in the business-to-business event, which runs from May 19 to 23, and features 1,500 members of the Australian tourism industry from 621 local travel companies. Around 714 representatives from 600 tourism wholesalers and retailers across 37 countries are expected to participate.

China was Australia’s biggest source of tourists and the largest source of tourist income in 2019. Yet numbers had only recovered to half of what they were before the pandemic as of March this year, according to Tourism Australia.

Although the market is promising, there are still challenges. For instance, international routes have not been fully restored and there are few direct flights between the two nations. Chinese travel agencies are also not offering a number of themed tours. These problems can be resolved by discussions between tourism companies on both sides.

Chinese tourists are the biggest spenders per capita in the southeastern state of Victoria and the second largest group of visitors, Tourism Victoria said.

In 2019, before the outbreak of Covid-19, Australia welcomed 1.44 million Chinese tourists, accounting for 15 percent of all inbound tourists, who spent AUD12.4 billion (USD8.3 billion) in the country.

Editor: Kim Taylor