Welcome Chinese

Welcome Chinese is a hospitality standard, brand and company founded in 2013 and headquartered in China. It was developed by the marketing and communications firm Select Holding Ltd, together with the China Tourism Academy (CTA), board of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). Company's purpose is to help Chinese tourists to feel more comfortable, travel easier and feel welcome overseas. Another goal is to help global hotels/resorts, museums, amusement parks, transportation hubs and all other sightseeing and tourist destinations to reach China's market through promotional activities.

The original purpose of Jacopo Sertoli, Select Holding’s CEO, when opening the China office in 2010 was to export to China the business model of Select Italy, a US-based tour operator focused on high-end tourism to Italy. Because of this experience, Welcome Chinese was able to start its activities with a background in international tourism.

Nevertheless, encouraging Chinese people to travel to Italy proved to be a formidable task. To improve the involvement of tourism businesses in Western countries, the company started by promoting the broadcasting of CCTV News, the bilingual channel of the Chinese State television, CCTV, as an in-room amenity in hotels. Although it started out as a secondary business, it lit the first spark for the Welcome Chinese concept: to certify hotels and other tourism businesses in return for providing services tailored specifically to Chinese tastes and habits. A new marketing strategy was being developed at that time, with single hotel chains like Preferred, Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Starwood and InterContinental independently starting their own programs to cater to Chinese visitors. These programs range from guaranteeing Mandarin-speaking staff at the hotel and providing Chinese-style breakfasts to accepting UnionPay credit cards.

It was the signing of the partnership between Select Holding and CTA, in the middle of 2013, that established the necessary basis for the constitution of Welcome Chinese. As it officially states, CTA aims to establish itself as think tank specialized in promoting the development of China's tourism industry. It provided an influential endorsement, thanks to its position as a specialized institute directly under CNTA. CTA agreed to promote the Welcome Chinese project and to privilege participants who have implemented the standard by recommending them to the Chinese travel industry.

The official launch of Welcome Chinese took place on October 18, 2013 at the National Stadium in Beijing. This followed the additional support that Select Holding gained from state-owned companies like China Central Television (CCTV) and China UnionPay. An agreement with Hilton Worldwide was then secured so that the hotels within its Huanying program could be involved in the Welcome Chinese program. This same period also saw the founding of Welcome Chinese Ltd, based in Hong Kong, while the operational activities were kept in the Select Holding’s offices in Shanghai.

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