[Photo/Xinhua]

The EU-China Tourism Year 2018 (ECTY) was launched last Friday in Venice, Italy, bringing together high level officials and private operators from both sides.

An official ceremony was held at the Doge's Palace to mark the opening of the initiative, which is aimed at strengthening cooperation between the European Union (EU) and China in terms of both tourism flows and investments in the sector.

Europe is now the third largest destination for Chinese citizens traveling abroad, according to Ambassador Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, who gave the figures in a recent interview with Xinhua in Brussels that nearly 3.5 million Chinese citizens visited the EU countries in 2016.

Overall, about 122 million Chinese travelled abroad (worldwide) in 2016, spending some $109.8 billion, according to data by the Chinese Tourism Academy.

Meanwhile, over 3.1 million Europeans travelled to China, injecting an estimated $14.17 billion into its economy, according to Ambassador Zhang.