Alitalia lands on Alibaba's specialised Alitrip store

Rome - Alitalia is now on Alibaba. The Italian airliner has opened a specialised store on Alitrip (aka Fliggy), the Chinese e-commerce giant's portal for flights and travel purchases. Chinese passengers flying Alitalia will have a dedicated website to organise and purchase their flights to Italy, Europe and many more destinations Alitalia reaches across the world. "With hundreds of millions of Internet users, an increasing number of Chinese passengers plan their trips online," said the company in a communique.

"Thanks to this new store, the Italian airliner will have access to the extensive tourism market in China. According to the latest data available from ISTAT (Italy's statistics agency), the number of Chinese tourists in Italy was over 5.3 million in 2015. China International Travel Service, one of the major tourist market operators and Alitalia's trade representative in China, has contributed to the opening of Alitalia's store on Alitrip." Since June 2016, Alitalia flies four times a week between Beijing and Rome with an Airbus A330, which has 250 seats divided into three classes (Business, Premium Economy and Economy). The Airbus A330 has totally renovated cabin upholstery, along with a WiFi connection for Internet, emails and telephone calls. All the planes travelling on that route also have two flight assistants speaking Mandarin to better cater to Chinese customers.

Travellers arriving from Beijing can connect to other Alitalia flights to over 50 destinations in Italy, Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa, with easy connections at the Rome Fiumicino hub, which has received the "Welcome Chinese Certification", the only hospitality standard dedicated to Chinese tourists and approved by China's authorities.