As the Spring Festival approaches, the Beijing Foreign Affairs Office held four meetings on promoting consular protection, both online and offline, to further foster an atmosphere where everyone understands their responsibility for consular protection. Participants demonstrated by sharing their experience and insights. The aim is to guide various sectors in conducting preventive consular protection, thereby ensuring safe overseas travels for citizens and organizations in Beijing.
Ensure safe overseas travels
As outbound travel continues to gain popularity during the Spring Festival, addressing safety risks has become an issue of great attention for outbound tourists. During the session for travel agencies, a representative from Qunar shared practical experiences in protecting tour groups at risk, including immediately setting up an emergency rescue team, and arranging medical assistance and evacuation. The expert from the China Academy of Culture and Tourism, Beijing International Studies University discussed effective practices from the perspectives of collaborative promotion, preventive protection, and mechanism improvement, thus giving reassurance to outbound travelers.
Secure safer study abroad
In the session on ensuring the safety of overseas students, a person in charge representative from Beijing Lu He International Academy presented their valuable expertise in ensuring the safety of students studying abroad by following the overseas study experience of graduates over the years. The representative from JJL Overseas Education offered pre-departure safety knowledge based on real cases to raise students’ risk awareness. This session addressed the concerns of parents and students regarding the safety of studying abroad, laying a solid foundation for better safeguarding the lives and properties of students abroad.
Diversify promotion channels
China CITIC Bank Beijing Branch serves as the first banking institution to be included in the promotion channels of consular protection by the Beijing Foreign Affairs Office. In the session on promotion channels, the representative from the bank introduced their strategies for promoting consular protection via various forms by leveraging the advantages of overseas financial services. Jiang Tai Global Assistance Service Co., Ltd. is the only home-grown assistance service company with a self-built global service network in China. Its representative listed classic cases of providing assistance services and insurance to protect Chinese enterprises and citizens going global.
Consular protection in communities
Promotion activities on consular protection were also undertaken at the community level to serve the public. Foreign affairs offices of various districts, sub-district communities, and citizen representatives shared their efforts during the final stages of promoting consular protection. The representative from Maliandao Party-Mass Service Center in Guangwai Street, Xicheng District, presented the practice of integrating consular protection promotion with party and government affairs, ensuring that consular protection service is delivered to every household.
Going forward, in the principle of “foreign affairs for the people”, the Beijing Foreign Affairs Office will continue to promote preventive consular protection in an innovative way to ensure safe overseas travels for citizens and institutions abroad, thereby contributing to the high-quality development of the capital.
