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INNSIDE Manchester Signs up to China Tourism Campaign

The INNSIDE Manchester hotel at First Street has been awarded a new Chartermark by VisitBritain, declaring it is qualified to welcome Chinese visitors to the city. The Charter, which now has over 300 members, is designed to help Chinese visitors easily identify hotels, attractions, retailers and tour operators that are making themselves ‘China-ready’ by providing information in Chinese and adapting their products for the market. The announcement follows President Xi Jinping’s historic visit to Manchester in October 2015, which was widely seen as a strong endorsement of the city’s emerging global status. INNSIDE Manchester, which opened in May 2015, is part of leading Spanish hotel group Meliá Hotels International. The global hotel chain has also announced a worldwide programme, “PengYou by Meliá”, designed to adapt its portfolio to the needs and expectations of Chinese guests. “PengYou by Meliá” will be introduced across 80 hotels within the company’s portfolio in spring 2016, including INNSIDE Manchester, which will be implemented in April 2016. The initiative will offer employees an extensive training programme, staff will be fluent in Mandarin and all hotels will accept Chinese credit cards from Union Pay, have Chinese TV channels, menus and minibar products adapted to guests’ tastes and translation of all materials. VisitBritain’s Great China Welcome Charter also aims to help make Britain the destination of choice for the rapidly growing Chinese market. Visitors from China have doubled in the last five years and tourism bosses believe they will be worth over £1 billion to Britain by 2020. In Manchester alone Chinese tourism is booming and the average amount spent per person (per trip) has increased from £2,800 in 2013 to £3,120 in 2014. In the past two years, Greater Manchester saw 34,100 Chinese tourists who contributed £100,149,100 to the economy (source MIDAS). INNSIDE Manchester qualified for the Charter because it has kept up-to-date with major trends in the Chinese outbound tourism market, evolving its products and services, to provide a world leading welcome to Chinese visitors. INNSIDE Manchester has also agreed to co-operate with other Charter members on future initiatives that might help to make Britain the most welcoming European destination for Chinese visitors. Meliá Hotels International’s effort to connect with Chinese travellers and earn their loyalty has already been recognised with two recent awards from Ctrip and Qunar, a leading online travel search platform in China. INNSIDE Manchester, General Manager, Adam Munday said: “We pride ourselves on providing the highest standards of service to all our guests and our Chinese visitors are no exception. We are experiencing strong interest from Chinese visitors and local students who seem to particularly enjoy our European style hotel and the food and drink offer from the hotel’s Street on First restaurant. “Our front of house team will be embarking upon the “PengYou by Meliá” programme over the next few months to support our registration to VisitEngland and to help make INNSIDE Manchester the first choice for Chinese travellers.” Jo Leslie, Project Manager of the Great China Welcome programme for VisitBritain, said: “There is strong evidence that businesses which go the extra mile in catering for certain nationalities soon reap the benefits. INNSIDE Manchester is a great example of a hotel which has been quick to recognise the massive potential of the Chinese market and has invested accordingly. We’re delighted to be able to count them as one of our first 100 members and hope that many more British tourism and hospitality businesses will follow their example.” As well as preparing the hotels, Meliá Hotels International aims to become a driving force behind outbound Chinese travel to Europe. The “PengYou by Meliá” programme will be extended to 80 hotels outside Asia, with a special focus on Europe, especially in Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as in cities with greater numbers of Chinese visitors. Currently the main recipients of Chinese visitors are New Zealand, Australia and other destinations in Asia.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jo Craig .