The CTW Chinese Tourist Welcome Award has been held annually by COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute since 2004. It has established itself as the leading award programme for the Chinese outbound tourism market, having presented service quality prizes to more than 150 tourism service providers, Destination Management Organisations, National Tourism Organisations, retailers, hospitality, marketing and communication companies among others. The CTW Award programme and its winners gain widespread exposure each year through a coverage in a wide range of international printed and digital media publications.
The 2026 CTW Award ceremony will be held on Thursday, 9th July 2026 (10 am London time, 11 am Berlin time, 2:45 pm Kathmandu time, 5 pm Singapore / Beijing time). After being presented as an offline ceremony for many years, the CTW Award will transition to an online format for the first time in 2026. Reza Soltani and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt will co-host an online show introducing the new structure and offers and also unveiling a new website dedicated to tourism into and out of China. The link to register will be published in next weeks edition of COTRI Weekly and on institutetourism.com and also will be available here.
The main content of the July 9th however, will be the presentation of the winners of the CTW Chinese Tourist Welcome Award 2026. The application process is free of charge, however, the deadline for applications is June 30th, 2026. So please hurry if you want to have a chance to be awarded in Gold, Silver and Bronze in one of the five categories of the CTW Award.
The online CTW Award presentation will start with a welcome by the co-hosts followed by a brief analysis of the current situation of international tourism to and from China by your humble editor. Award winners will be announced and the five gold winners will be invited to give a short presentation each about their award-winning activities. These great Best Practice Examples will be helpful for anybody working in the Chinese market.
Applications are evaluated by a jury of Chinese and Non-Chinese tourism experts. Gold, Silver and Bronze CTW Awards are awarded in five categories each:
APPLICATION PROCEDURE:
Please send your submission including available links, documents etc. together with the application form to award@meaningfultourismcentre.org.
Click here for: 
CTW Award 2026 – Application Form
If you are interested in the full list of winners, please click the links below: