The importance of the Chinese market for the region and of cooperation among countries to create a competitive and attractive tourist offering for Chinese tourists was stressed by Hungarian and Croatian ministers Peter Szijjarto and Gari Cappelli.

This was echoed by Štravs Podlogar, who noted that the Chinese tourism market was very important for Slovenia. Together with Croatia, the country has been recording excellent results based on a joint promotional campaign, the Ministry for Economic Development and Technology said on its web site.

"We will further upgrade this through the support that the Slovenian Tourist Board (STO) and the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) received through a call for applications of the European Travel Commission," the ministry said.

The organisations applied in June for ETC funds, intended for the promotion of European countries on the Chinese market, with a joint project, to be carried out between October 2018 and March 2019, worth a total of EUR 204,000. The ETC will reimburse half of the costs of the project.

The STO is present on the Chinese market through business-to-business activities, such as tourism workshops, study tours for Chinese tour operators, and through hosting Chinese providers at the Slovenian Incoming Workshop (SIW).

As part of the CEEC meeting in Dubrovnik, several workshops were also organised focussing on investment, medical tourism and cooperation among the tourism sectors of the 16+1 countries.

The 16+1 initiative promotes economic cooperation between China and the 16 countries of CE Europe.