China partners with 3rd Planet in organizing biggest online consumer tourism initiative

China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC), a media production arm supervised by China’s State Council Information Office, partners with 3rd Planet to co-organize the largest consumer touris

China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC), a media production arm supervised by China’s State Council Information Office, partners with 3rd Planet to co-organize the largest consumer tourism initiative online. The massive project, Wonders of the World (WOW) will be launched to consumers globally in the first quarter of 2014.

CICC is the longest established co-production documentary company in China. Working together with international broadcasters, CICC has co-produced and broadcast over 200 hours of high quality factual programs, showcasing the many faces of China: its dynamic economic growth; its diverse cultures; its ancient history and its cutting edge science and technology; as well as its natural beauty, little-known outside the country. Over the years, CICC have created outstanding documentary series that have been broadcast around the world and well-received by audiences, Wonders of the World Project will be available in both English and Mandarin when launched such as Invite Mr. Wright (Discovery Channel), Man Made Marvels (Discovery
Channel), Mega Structures (National Geographic), Lonely Planet Six Degrees (Discovery Channel) and View on China from Japanese Stars (BS Asahi), winning over 20 international awards.

CICC aims to have the WOW launch event, helping non-Chinese tourism organizations to reach out to the affluent Chinese online community, at the same time promoting some of China’s most iconic destinations to the rest of the world.

WOW will see the largest ever gathering of countries, travel-related businesses and consumers in an international online expo. It will be a joint collaboration of government, private tourism sectors, technology leaders and telcos globally. The goal is to stimulate growth of visitor arrivals and tourism receipts, at the same time generate greater return of marketing investment for the tourism industry.

This would be a massive branding exercise that will dwarf the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, changing the way consumers look and understand destinations.

WOW provides the tourism industry a new and exciting way to market destinations and to amplify the unique nuances of each country/destination through an immersive new media. The tourism industry participates by allowing their destinations – either interior, exterior, or both – to be reconstructed in interactive three-dimensional (3D) format. Consumers can visit and interact with a country’s renowned attractions as well as have a bird’s eye view of its land from their computers or tablets, thanks to realistic, built-to-scale 3D reconstructions.

China is one of the largest and fastest growing consumer markets in the world. Chinese international travel will become a major source of growth for travel providers for destination countries. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, by 2020, 25 percent on international travelers arriving in Japan and South Korea will come from China, while arrivals in Europe from China will quadruple. China will become the largest sources of growth for Europe’s travel market, accounting for more than half the incremental arrivals from countries outside the EU. In North America, travelers from China will rank third in numbers after travelers from the United Kingdom and Japan.

“3rd Planet is excited to have CICC as a co-organizer of the largest consumer travel event. CICC’s participation will provide the necessary online license to provide outreach to the massive outbound Chinese market, which is growing at 18% annually,” said Mr. Terence Mak, CEO of 3rd Planet.

Mr. Jing Shuiqing, Director of Film and TV Division of CICC added, “CICC is pleased to play an active role for the Wonders of the World project and will help to boost the Chinese tourism industry, as well as bridging the language and cultural barrier for the world’s tourism.”

More than 750 tourism organizations have been invited to participate in this international launch event to showcase their top-notch destinations worthy to be part of the Wonders of the World Project. This has generated strong interests and positive feedback from tourism organizations. Since the launch of project in September 2012 most of the Asian tourism organizations are already on board this massive project. “Tourism boards are signing up early for greater savings and more time for their promotional planning at the launch,” Mr. Mak further added.

The event seeks to reach out to broadband users, which is seen to be more affluent and IT-savvy. This means they can afford trips, tend to stay at a location longer and spend more money during their vacation – the ideal target for the industry.

With users mass sharing the sites on social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, as well as China’s Weibo and Renren, Wonders of the World will be of an extensive scale, reaching out to some 600 million across the six continents.

Wonders of the World Project (WOW) is now open to all tourism boards for registration. To have a full perspective of the event, visit www.3rdplanet.com/wowvideo .

ABOUT 3RD PLANET

3rd Planet is a new media company that offers travel and tourism industry an interactive 3D online media platform to connect and engage the consumers worldwide. It depicts interesting places of the world and help global audience experience and learn about global tourism locations online through a realistic 3D interactive environment.

3rd Planet is the presenter of Wonders of the World, the flagship event featuring the best of the best destinations from each country in interactive 3D, launching in first quarter 2014.

ABOUT CHINA INTERCONTINENTAL COMMUNICATION CENTRE

China Intercontinental Communication Centre (CICC) is the media production arm supervised by China’s State Council Information Office and is one of China’s largest documentary producers, specializing in the genres of nature, history and culture. CICC’s core business is co-production of world-class documentaries about China with a range of international broadcasting partners. Founded in 1994, CICC has a team of highly talented producers with experience in the international television industry. CICC enjoys an excellent relationship with China’s government agencies and is one of the few organizations in China that has been granted a license to host foreign film crews. Among the international production companies and broadcasting networks CICC has worked with are National Geographic Channels, Discovery Channels, PBS, D3 TV Station, Arte, ZDF and Vox (Germany), TBS and BS Asahi (Japan), NHNZ (New Zealand), Granada, Lion Productions and the National Film Board of Canada.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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