On November 30th, China Eastern Airlines (CEA), together with the Luiss Guido Carli, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies and Nankai University, successfully held an online seminar on the "Cooperation and Development of Sino-Italian Civil Aviation and Cultural Tourism". Nearly thirty representatives of media outlets, enterprises, universities and academia from Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Rome and Pisa conducted a friendly exchange through videoconferencing.
At the seminar, representatives from CEA established a close relationship with Italian universities through sharing their experience in combating COVID-19, product development ideas, and Q&A, so that scholars at the seminar could learn more about CEA and China. Lin Bo, a captain of CEA, recalled at the seminar, "I was much honored to be able to carry out the first medical charter mission to Rome, and the cooperation of all civil aviation organizations on both sides made the flight a success in a short period of time." Zhang Erchi, a participant of CEA's "Fly at Will" discount package, said, "The program is an innovative product in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It starts with the civil aviation industry and stimulates the industry chain of cultural tourism, activating the entire economic cycle."
Scholars and experts voiced their opinions on the challenges and opportunities facing CEA and how civil aviation enterprises could promote international cultural exchanges and development. Prof. Alberto Di Minin, head of the research team at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies and Italian director of the Confucius Institute in Pisa, said in his speech, “In the new norms of COVID-19 prevention and control, we hope to continue our exchange with our Chinese partners through online communication. Personally, I also hope that after the pandemic is over, I will have the opportunity to fly back to China on a CEA flight to meet my friends.”
The online seminar, which spanned five locations and linked the two countries, concluded with a lively discussion. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Italy, the people of the two countries have stood by each other to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Through online communication, they tore down the barrier of the pandemic, exchanged ideas, explored new innovations, and made new contributions to the mutual acceptance, appreciation and intercommunication between the two cultures.