The European Grand Tour, Chinese Style

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  12.30.10 | 2:29 PM ET

The Economist takes note of a new variation on an old theme: a Chinese take on the classic “grand tour” of Europe. From the story:

China’s newly mobile middle classes like to visit established spots like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Venice’s Grand Canal. But the visitors have also marked out a grand tour all of their own, shaped by China’s fast-developing consumer culture and by distinctive quirks of culture, history and politics. The result is jaw-dropping fame, back in China, for a list of places that some Europeans would struggle to pinpoint on a map: places like Trier, Metzingen, Verona, Luxembourg, Lucerne and the Swiss Alp known as Mount Titlis.

(Via @reidontravel)

Tags: Nation Branding, Tourism, Europe, News and Briefs

Eva Holland is the senior editor of World Hum. She is an associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and her writing has also appeared in Reader's Digest Canada, NationalGeographic.com, the National Post, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and WestJet's Up! Magazine, among other publications. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


2 Comments for The European Grand Tour, Chinese Style

Penny 01.03.11 | 3:39 PM ET

Culture affecting travel destinations isn’t something I’ve given much thought to, but it’s such an interesting idea. Any more information about this?

Austin Beeman 01.05.11 | 10:53 PM ET

It makes me think about what weird places I’ve gone too for my own person reasons.  I once spent an entire day in Paris visiting locations that had appeared in James Bond novels or movies.

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