The tourism industry in China is bound to experience renewed growth this year in both inbound and outbound trips, after a slight dip in 2013, due to the lingering effect of the latest international financial crisis.
Wu Wenxue, vice director of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), last Friday expressed his confidence that more foreign visitors will again choose China as a tourism destination in 2014.
The CNTA last year registered 129.08 million visitors to China, including 55.69 million transit visa holders. These figures represent a 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent drop, respectively, compared to one year earlier.
The vice administrator said tourists from the Western developed countries, which have suffered most from the economic downturn, showed a sense of reluctance in taking long distance trips. This may explain why China saw less foreign travelers despite introducing the transit visa policies last year.
Nevertheless, Wu added that travelers from China's neighboring countries and regions -- South Korea, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan -- still represented the majority of inbound tourists.
The CNTA would accordingly unveil favorable policies to cater for these people, according to Wu, adding that stepping up border travels in cooperation with Russia, Mongolia and Vietnam would also become a focus for the administration.
China's Tourism Law, which became effective on Oct. 1, 2013, also slightly cooled the market, said Wu.
The law rectified travel agency practices, mainly banning them from offering customers unrealistically low prices and subsequently subjecting them to forced purchases, by means of which travel agents could then harvest the profits.
"After the Tourism Law was enacted, prices for package tours rose, which affected some people's willingness to make trips. But it is a rational settlement for package tour prices," Wu said.
Liu Xinxiao, a tour guide mainly for outbound trips with Beijing-based Phoenix Travels, agreed with the above. She said her colleagues "would rather stay at home than take out tour groups" to places like Western Europe or Southeast Asia, both popular destinations," because they could no longer "make as much money off the books."
Source: china.org.cn by Chen Boyuan | Photo: xinhua
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