ADVERTISEMENT

Canada Stops Running Tourism Ads in China After Huawei Arrest: CBC

Canada Stops Running Tourism Ads in China After Huawei Arrest: CBC

(Bloomberg) -- The national body that markets Canada as a tourist destination is halting new advertisements in China as tensions heat up following the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co.’s finance chief, according to CBC News.

Destination Canada, wholly owned by the federal government, and its partners decided to “temporarily pause or postpone our current marketing efforts in China,” the CBC quoted the organization’s representative as saying. The marketing primarily promoted winter activities across Canada on Chinese social media, the representative said.

The response is the latest fallout from the arrest earlier this month of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. The incident has sparked a selective anti-Canada backlash in China, with protesters on social media calling for a boycott of luxury parka company Canada Goose Holdings Inc. The detention by China’s spy agency of two Canadians signaled an escalation in the feud between the two countries.

“We really don’t want to be fueling the fire during a time when there’s other stressful conversations going on,” Cathie Bolstad, chief executive officer of NWT Tourism, a Destination Canada partner, said in the CBC report. The marketing halt doesn’t pull all previous advertisements from social media, she said.

China is the biggest tourism source for Canada’s Northwest territory, according to the region’s Department of Infrastructure, Tourism and Investment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniela Wei in Hong Kong at jwei74@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: K. Oanh Ha at oha3@bloomberg.net, Jeff Sutherland, Young-Sam Cho

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.