Talking Travel: Barcelona, South America, and More

Greetings once again from Hong Kong, this is an on-the-road edition of Talking Travel. Having fully recovered now, I can say that the red-eye Dragonair flight described in Tuesday's edition of this column is worth taking, but don't plan anything beyond dinner the same evening. Trust me.

Some nice news from Air China: the national carrier just began service from Beijing to Barcelona via Vienna, four days per week. The flight leaves at 2.10am and arrives in Barcelona at 9.25am. I'm curious about Air China service internationally. A friend recently told me that "it's better than United." I happen to like United, although I only ever really fly them from Beijing to Newark, but as a Star Alliance member, they might be worth a long-haul try. Air China flew two million people to Europe in 2013, so somebody must be doing the leg work.

Speaking of Europe, police in France have invited members of China's Public Security Bureau to join them this summer there to help deal with the huge number of expected Chinese tourists. Over 1.5 million Chinese visitors are expected to go to France this year. Please insert your Inspector Clouseau joke here.

If you're looking for travel destinations where you can avoid Chinese travelers, then Latin America is the place, although that may not be true after this summer's football/soccer World Cup. In 2013, only 25,000 Chinese visitors went to Argentina. Viva Argentina?

That's it for now. This Thursday edition of Talking Travel will become more about trends and feature interviews with travel industry executives shortly. Until Tuesday, one road flat safe.

Photo: Airpano