CHINA: Why Do Foreign Visitors Ignore China? Yet More Chinese Are Touring The World

Visitors from China may have become the biggest contributors to the global tourism market, but the Asian giant with a 5,000-year history apparently is not that attractive to foreign travellers.

The number of inbound tourists grew at an average annual rate of just 1 per cent between 2005 and 2015 – and eight out of 10 of those were from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, according to a report by a Beijing think tank.

The rate trails that of both developed countries and other emerging economies, the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG) report said. It’s also far behind the average for the Asia-Pacific region, which saw inbound tourist traffic grow by more than 80 per cent in that period.

The National Tourism Administration has blamed the global financial crisis for visitors staying away in the past decade, but last week said the market had entered a new era of steady growth.

It posted a trade surplus of US$10.2 billion in tourism revenue for 2016 – meaning inbound spending exceeded outbound spending.
But those figures are less convincing without visitor revenue from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Excluding visitors from those three places, the researchers found that, based on official data, Chinese tourists made 30 million more trips abroad than foreigners made to China in 2015. Those numbers remained largely unchanged last year.

Take away the three areas, and there was a big number of foreign tourists who were actually Chinese nationals living abroad. So the number of foreign visitors was really small, which is inconsistent with China’s growth in general.

More than 60 per cent of foreign tourists visiting mainland China are from Asia – mainly from South Korea and Japan, the report said.

Beijing-based tourism researcher Liu Simin said the appreciation of the yuan before 2016 had affected the market, but it was also struggling to compete with well-established holiday spots in Asia.

Popular tourist destinations in Asia such as Thailand provide better service and are often better advertised.

Foreigners may have put off travelling to China because of its reputation for polluted air and food safety problems.
Visitors are afraid of three things: the air pollution, the water pollution and the food.

Other Asian countries might be more appealing travel destinations for foreigners,Japan for example, has the reputation of being cool. When people think of Japan, they think of hi-tech, and Korea too. China seems more foreign, more scary.

Foreigners tend not to think of China as a holiday destination. China has always been reported as being dirty, polluted, not very nice people, suspicious foods, language problems.

Because of internet restrictions, viz. a lack of advertising, China doesn’t get the coverage like other Southeast Asian countries and therefore potential visitors continue to believe that China is only about the bad and the only tourist attraction is the Great Wall.

Visa policies are another a barrier. Although visa-free transit stays have been introduced in some cities, and Hainan Island offers tourist visas on arrival, strict policies otherwise apply.

China also had the world’s lowest percentage of foreign students. Of its 35 million university students, some 200,000 or less than 1 per cent were foreign. The number of long-term foreign residents, including students, was also low at about 800,000.

If there are not so many expats there are not so many people going to visit them, or sending kids to study in China.

Meanwhile, many local travel agents were focused on outbound services as the growing middle class head overseas in greater numbers.

All the agents need to do is send people to these places, whereas it takes a lot more money and effort and earns less to receive foreign tourists.

But some in the industry are trying to lure more foreign tourist dollars. Ctrip, China’s largest online travel agency, recently teamed up with the Confucius Institute Headquarters, a government organisation providing language and cultural teaching services in foreign countries to generate more interest from overseas.

Zhu Lei, who heads strategic cooperation at Ctrip’s international business unit, said China should be attracting more foreigners because of its rich history and culture, but also for other reasons including its steady currency and visa-free transit stays in some cities.

He said Beijing’s belt and road trade plan was also a chance to attract more foreign tourists. Guided by that initiative, local governments are now targeting Russia, eastern and central Europe and South Asia for inbound tourism, Zhu said.These regions will be the source of more visitors to China.

About 133 million tourists will make outbound trips by the end of 2016, according to the report released by the China Tourism Academy and the financial services company UnionPay International.

The figure would mark an 11.5 per cent rise on 2015.

Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan remain the top choices for mainland tourists, according to the report.They are followed by Thailand, South Korea and Japan.

Eastern Europe, South America, and Central Asia are set to become popular outbound destinations for Chinese travellers in the coming years, the report said.

Chinese tourists are increasingly getting involved in leisure activities and learning about local lifestyles when travelling overseas rather than just shopping, according to the report.

Chinese tourists spent US$104.5 billion overseas last year, up 16.6 per cent on 2014, and a growing number of foreign countries are relaxing their visa requirements for Chinese tourists to tap their purchasing power.

A survey conducted by HSBC last month has also suggested that there is huge growth potential catering for Chinese tourists overseas.
HSBC estimates that the number of outbound trips from China will double over the next 10 years.

While more than two-thirds of the panel respondents were passport holders, far fewer have made trips abroad. It seems we are just at the beginning, said Erwan Rambourg, a head of consumer and retail research at HSBC.

Some 2,000 people aged 18 to 34 with household income exceeding 120,000 yuan (HK$139,000) a year took part in the poll last month.



Tourism Observer

CHINA: Poorly Behaved Chinese Tourists Make Chinese Unwelcome In Some Parts Of The World

Men to face criminal probe for using symbols linked to organisations that are in breach of Germany’s constitution.

Berlin police officers said they detained two men, aged 36 and 49, after they were seen striking the Nazi-era pose and photographing each other with their mobile phones.

They face charges for “using symbols of illegal organisations”, the police said in a statement, and were released after posting bail of 500 euros (US$590) each.

Germany has strict laws on hate speech and symbols linked to Hitler and the Nazis, who ruled between 1933 and 1945.
The Reichstag is a powerful symbol in Germany. It was destroyed by fire in 1933 by an arsonist thought to have been paid by the Nazis, who then blamed the blaze on the Communists and used it as an excuse to severely restrict civil liberties.

News of the arrests soon began to circulate through China’s online community, where a large majority of people said the men deserved their punishments.

It’s like holding a wartime flag of the Japanese army in front of Tiananmen Square. Go to jail, a person wrote making reference to Japan’s invasion of China during the second world war.

In a similar vein, some people said they were impressed by the reaction of the German police as it showed that modern Germany did not want to be associated with its Nazi past. In contrast, Japan has never apologised for its wartime atrocities, some people wrote.

Other commentators said they were not offended by the men’s salutes as they were unaware of the links to Hitler or the Nazis.
Several others took a more ­resigned view, saying the incident was just an example of Chinese tourists behaving badly overseas. The fact that most Chinese citizens are poorly behaved has made the Chinese unwelcome in some parts of the world, a user surnamed Zhang said on Weibo.

About 122 million Chinese people travelled abroad last year, making them the world’s biggest spenders on overseas travel.

The advent of social media has brought with it the ability to whip out a mobile phone anywhere and record people doing anything untoward.

Many of those caught in the act have been tourists behaving badly. Here are 42 stories from recent years starring naughty travellers.

A flight from Shanghai to Guangzhou in June 2017 was delayed after an elderly female passenger apparently threw coins into the plane’s engine to ensure good luck.

China Southern Airlines Flight 380 was held up at Shanghai Pudong International Airport after the disruption, according to the airline’s official WeChat account.

Passengers boarding the flight saw the woman standing at the middle of the boarding staircase, throwing coins at the engine for “blessings”. They alerted the crew.

Plane mechanics later found nine coins at the site, including one inside the engine. The captain was quoted as saying that the metal, if sucked up by the engine, could have caused serious damage, including engine failure.

An airline passenger on an internal flight in China sparked a safety scare in December 2014 by yanking open an emergency exit to “get some fresh air” as the plane was due to take off.

Amazed fellow travellers on the Xiamen Air flight from Hangzhou to Chengdu took a series of snaps on their mobile phones, which found their way onto social media.

The photos showed the middle-aged man, wearing a blue hooded coat, poke his head out of the open door as a stewardess looked on. He was reportedly a first-time flier.

A maintenance team rushed to fix the door and the flight took off on time. The airline did not penalise the passenger as he had not meant any harm. He did not cause delay or any other direct loss to the airline, a staff member said.

It takes nature hundreds of thousands of years to create limestone stalagmites in scenic caves, but only a few seconds for a badly behaved tourist to damage them.

Such was the case in southwest China when a young man deliberately destroyed a 50cm stalagmite at a cave in Songtao county, Guizhou province, in June 2017.

Surveillance cameras caught the white-shirted man trying to kick off the stalagmite on the side of the main path in the cave, while other tourists were taking photos of the natural marvels. He made three attempts to eventually knock off a 30cm-long tip and then walked away without taking it, the footage showed.

Cave enthusiast Wang Dayong said that it takes an excruciatingly long time, many thousands of years for stalagmites to form from the ground up or stalactites to form downwards from cave ceilings, and they can barely be restored.

A woman was placed in detention for 10 days and blacklisted on Air France flights in China after she slapped a member of staff at an airport in June 2017.

The 36-year-old doctoral student from a prestigious university lost her temper after she was told by ground staff that check-in for her flight from Wuhan to Paris had closed 14 minutes earlier.

Staff offered to alter or refund her tickets, but the woman refused, saying she had to go abroad to take part in an important conference.
She then rushed to the staff working area and slapped a member of staff twice after negotiations failed.

A man and woman were detained at an airport in southwest China in April 2017 for brawling on the tarmac as they were boarding their flight, which was delayed for half an hour.

Police said the two passengers were husband and wife. They were in the course of divorce negotiations when the fight broke out at Kunming airport in Yunnan province. The woman was pinned to the ground by the man, whose shirt was torn off.

Afterwards, they tried to board the plane but the captain refused and called airport security instead.

A drunken Australian tourist was arrested in Hong Kong in August 2015 after he attacked a minibus driver and took the vehicle for a joyride from Causeway Bay to the hills above Happy Valley.

He boarded a minibus parked at the rear of a queue on Lockhart Road, closing his fingers around the driver’s neck before kicking him out of the vehicle.

I told him to take the minibus parked in the front, but he did not listen and kept shouting at me in English and repeating the F-word, said the 64-year-old driver, surnamed Chiu.

Police officers later found the vehicle abandoned, intact except for a shattered window. They soon found the man nearby, reeking of alcohol.

A brawl between four women from mainland China on a Hong Kong-bound flight over a noisy baby almost forced the plane to return to Chongqing in December 2014.

When the plane reached about 7,500 metres in altitude, two women became angry at the noise from a baby in the row behind them. They retaliated by reclining their seats as far as possible.

An argument ensued and a brawl started. It went on for a while before cabin crew stepped in, warning that the flight would return to Chongqing if they did not stop.

Pictures showed that one of the women was lifted from her seat, with her head almost hitting the overhead luggage cabinet on the Air China flight.

A tourist was criticised for her uncivilised behaviour after she took selfies while sitting on top of a 600-year-old statue outside a Ming dynasty tomb.

She apparently failed to see a warning sign next to the artefacts outside the Xiaoling tomb in Nanjing that told visitors “Do Not Touch”.
The woman spent five minutes on the statue taking selfies, running through several poses.The tomb’s management said that it did not have enough staff on duty to supervise visiting tourists.

Faced with a 10-hour delay, dozens of tourists from China vented their anger by singing the Chinese national anthem at an airport departure hall in Bangkok, Thailand in September 2015.

Their flight was scheduled to take off from Don Mueang International Airport at 5pm but was delayed until 3am the next day.Cellphone video filmed of the emotional tourists singing went viral in China.

Four unruly air passengers scalded an air hostess and threatened to blow up a plane, forcing a low-cost flight from Thailand to the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing to return to Bangkok in December 2014.

One male passenger made the threat after a row with the crew, because the group could not be seated together.Another man later lost his temper when a crew member told him that change for his purchase a cup of hot water could be given only in Thai baht, not renminbi.His companion threw hot water and noodles at the attendant, causing her to burst into tears.

Beijing airport police detained five passengers who were involved in a brawl on a Hainan Airlines flight from Beijing to Xian in June 2016, delaying the flight nearly five hours.

Witnesses said the fight, which involved several men and a women, began when the female passenger started insulting flight attendants verbally because the flight was delayed, while others tried to stop her.

A man sitting next to her was the most severely injured. He initially tried to stop the woman but later became a target and was attacked by several other male passengers.

A Singaporean man was attacked by a Komodo dragon in Indonesia, after he ignored warnings from locals and approached the creatures to take photographs.

The 67-year-old was rushed to hospital with leg injuries after being pounced on by the venomous creature.He was probably very excited taking pictures of the dragon, he didn’t realise another dragon was approaching him and then he was bitten, said a local police spokesman. Luckily it was a small dragon that bit him.

Tourists’ violent behaviour caused the death of two peacocks at a city zoo in February 2016.The birds are believed to have died from shock after visitors picked them up to pose with them for photographs at Yunnan Zoo in Kunming.

Some even plucked out the feathers of the peacocks.The zoo confirmed that the two birds had died. Park officials said they believed shock after being held forcefully by visitors was the cause.

Parts of China’s Qinghai Lake,a place of such outstanding natural beauty that it is one of the area’s most popular travel destinations have been turned into huge rubbish dumps by visitors and local hotels.

A large number of visitors bring food in plastic bags and polystyrene containers, and leave them behind when they leave.Newly provided rubbish pits quickly fill up, so rubbish is left piled up beside main roads, hostels and scene sites. Much of it blows into the lake.5,343 people visited the lake in October 2015, up by 20 per cent compared to the previous year.

Chinese tourists in northern China have been caught scaling walls to enter a wildlife attraction.Visitors to the Qinling Wildlife Park in Xian in Shaanxi province save 40 yuan (US$5.80) in entrance fees by paying local residents for access to a ladder to climb over a wall into the wildlife park.

They pay 60 yuan for the ladder, while the official entrance fee is 100 yuan.One visitor who entered the park this way showed some regret: Listening to the lion’s roar nearby really frightened me. I really regretted climbing into the park.

Tourists targeted migratory red-billed gulls at a park in Yunnan province in November 2015, grabbing them to take photographs.Pictures posted online showed a man seizing one of the wild gulls by its feet as he posed for a photo at Kunming’s Cuihu Park, or Green Lake Park.

Another man at the park grabbed another gull by the feet and held it aloft as he took his photograph with it.When other visitors tried to stop him, he said: It’s just for a photo, it’s not to catch it.

About 3,300 Chinese tourists refused to leave their cruise ship at the South Korean resort island of Jeju in March 2017 in a spontaneous protest against Seoul’s decision to deploy a US anti-missile system.

About 80 tour buses and guides had to cancel their services when the tourists refused to disembark for the scheduled stop.The local travel agency organising the stop was not notified on the passengers’ decision before arrival.The passengers on the Costa Serena all staff on a company trip said the decision not to get off at the island was their own.

Built as a solemn place of reflection, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is an undulating sea of stone blocks lined up like so many coffins on a sprawling patch of central Berlin. But in the Instagram and Facebook, it has also become something else.The perfect backdrop for a selfie.

At a place honouring the memory of the Nazis’ victims, young laughing visitors hop from block to block, searching for the best angles.Some pose sensually atop the slabs for eye-candy shots on dating websites. One man had his picture taken between the stones while juggling.

A pagoda built to replace an historic 1,300-year-old building in northern China has been left covered in visitors’ graffiti since reopening to the public about a decade ago.

Even the Buddhist paintings covering the walls inside Haifeng Pagoda, in Dajue Temple, in Shandong province didn’t escape the attention of tourists.Visitors wrote all over the artwork while leaving messages to their relatives or lovers.

NBA player Bobby Brown was criticised in China after he posted a photo of his initials and uniform number graffitied on the stones of the country’s ancient Great Wall.

Had a blast at the Great Wall of China today, he wrote on his Weibo microblog in October 2016, adding four photos including one with his initials and uniform number, “BB #6”, on bricks at the wall.

Many internet users slammed him for defacing China’s most famous cultural landmark.Are you proud of your carving? This is a part of world heritage, not the toilet of your home, one Weibo user commented.

Even before Shanghai Disneyland opened, badly behaved tourists descended on it and left their mark.Scores of excited tourists who couldn’t wait for the theme park’s opening on June 16, 2016, visited Disney Town, located right beside the park.

A photo of a Disney Town lamp post defaced with scrawlings that read “was here travelling” went viral online.Not all were bad,most visitors brought their own food and carried plastic bags to contain their trash.

A group of Chinese tourists sparked a debate in May 2016 after they sang revolutionary songs outside the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.

The group of 36 travellers from Jinan in Shandong province were among the first batch of tourists to take part in a promotion encouraging Chinese visitors to visit the United States.

The group, whose members were aged between 50 to 60, sang songs praising the accomplishments of the Communist Party and Mao Zedong in New York at the end of their 14-day tour.

Socialism is good, socialism is good! People of socialist countries have high social status. Reactionaries are overthrown. Imperialism tucks its tail and flees, they sang.

A man visiting a zoo in October 2016 had a lucky escape after being grabbed and knocked to the ground by a playful giant panda.He had allegedly climbed inside the enclosure while trying to impress two female companions.

The unnamed man was left unharmed, but his pants were torn to shreds in the incident at Nanchang Zoo, in Nanchang, Jiangxi province.
The zoo’s manager said the man was lucky that Mei Ling, the 12-year-old male giant panda, had wanted only to play with the man, or he might have been seriously hurt.

Two Chinese tourists returned a toilet seat they took from a hotel in Japan, apologising for the indiscretion.The couple took a spare toilet seat from underneath their bed after they stayed at a hotel in Nagoya in October 2016.

After the tour group left, the hotel found out about the missing seat and contacted the travel agency to demand its return.The couple said they took it because they thought it had been left by other guests who had stayed in the same room.

Six tourists had to be rescued by monks in October 2016 after becoming lost in a mountain forest for four hours while trying to sneak into a scenic attraction for free.

Two monks living in a temple on Mount Wutai, in Shanxi province, were alerted by the stranded travellers’ cries for help.The tourists had decided to avoid paying the 145 yuan (US$22) entrance fee by bypassing the ticket office and climbing up the mountain themselves.But after setting off at 6pm, they became lost in the forest halfway up the mountain, about 20km away from the scenic spot.

Hundreds of tourists in northern China were caught using fake military documents to obtain free tickets to historical sites and museums.Over one weekend in October 2016, Chinese army personnel stationed outside the Terracotta Army Museum in Xian, Shaanxi province, confiscated more than 200 counterfeit booklets containing certificates issued for use by soldiers, officers, army cadets and handicapped soldiers.

An adult ticket to the museum costs 150 yuan (US$22).The officers outside the museum said they were able to identify bogus soldiers by asking them questions about things that were common knowledge in the military.

An angry couple in China who knocked down airport staff after arriving too late to board their flight staged a protest on the runway to stop the aircraft from taking off.The Shanghai-bound Air China flight was delayed for 20 minutes in September 2016 because of the protest by the unnamed couple at Beijing Capital International Airport.

They arrived at the boarding gate after it had already closed, but pushed past and knocked down several airline employees so they could run along the gangway leading to the plane.After cabin crew refused to let them inside, the woman told ground staff that she would not leave unless they were allowed on board.

A national nature reserve in Hebei province was forced to close just six days after it opened part of the mountain to tourist groups after severe degradation of grass areas.The managing office of Xiaowutai Mountain announced in July 2016 that some tourists had entered prohibited areas to camp and also collected wild plants.

It decided to close the entire reserve to all visitors to prevent further damage to the environment.

An angry young man threw away the shoes of a sleeping barefoot traveller who was lying across three seats in an airport waiting area.In a video that went viral on Chinese social media in May 2016, he said he was angry because he saw a man lying on the seats with his shoes and socks off.

What will foreigners think when they see such ill manners,they will wonder about how low Chinese people’s standards are.The man later picks up the shoes off the floor, and throws them in the nearest rubbish bin.

Passengers irritated by a flight delay were photographed beating up a member of an airline’s check-in staff in April 2016.Capital Airlines’ flight from Beijing to Changsha was delayed because of bad weather. Several passengers then became angry and humiliated a woman working for the airline at Beijing Capital International Airport after their demand to meet an airline representative was rejected.

One angry woman threw the contents of her takeaway meal box over the employee, while a man slapped the employee’s face before shouting: What’s wrong with beating you up?

Dozens of attendees of a flower show in east China in April 2016 waded into a field of freshly planted tulips and yanked them out by the handful, despite signs urging people to leave the display alone.

The tulips were among 200,000 flowers planted for the annual spring expo in Jiujiang in Jiangxi province.Signs had been posted, which read: The tulips are only for viewing and please do not take them home.Despite that, visitors waded into the sea of pink, yellow and black flowers to gather bouquets, with some people ripping the flowers out by the roots.

About 20 tourists from mainland China and Hong Kong were accused of fishing illegally for lobsters at a national park in Thailand in April 2016.
The visitors allegedly hired a boat and fished in protected waters off the coast of Phuket.

Photographs published on social media showed large amounts of seafood on a fishing boat with tourists holding up the catch.The captain of the boat taking the tourists to the Similan Islands was arrested and the company operating the trip barred from taking other visitors to the area for a month.

A video of tourists using their plates to shovel shrimp at a hotel buffet in Chiang Mai, Thailand, left internet users around the world reacting with horror.

Subsequent photos showed most of the food was left uneaten and wasted.The tourists were seen jostling with each other noisily to get at the food, and walking away with several overflowing plates each.Much of the food was left on the tables, prompting widespread criticism of the tourists’ greed.

Chinese tourists fed money to fish in a park in the hope that it would bring them good luck.Warm weather in March 2016 led to large crowds of people visiting the park in Jinan, Shandong province, and a number of them were seen throwing coins and bank notes into a pond full of fish.
Far from bringing good luck, their behaviour was effectively killing the fish by polluting the pond, park management said.

Badly behaved tourists who travelled to see cherry blossom trees in bloom at a city in eastern China were seen kicking the trees or climbing them all for good photographs.

Some of the pictures, taken in Nanjing, were published on social media to heavy criticism online.One picture showed a middle-aged woman who had climbed a tree wearing high heels. Another showed a man kicking a cherry blossom tree so its petals would fall loose.

The animals at the zoo in Zhengzhou, the capital of northern China’s Henan province, had not seen predators for decades, but their peaceful life ended in March 2016 with the arrival of hundreds of tourists looking for food.

As workers drained water out of the zoo’s man-made lake for maintenance and an upgrade, some sharp-eyed visitors spotted mussels at the exposed muddy bottom of the lake.

Rolling up trousers and sleeves, they jumped into the mud and were soon joined by hundreds of others.A member of the zoo’s staff said they tried warn the tourists that the mussels might not be safe to eat, but that friendly advice was ignored.

Two badly behaved travellers were captured shouting abuse at a tour guide after they allegedly became unhappy with their seats on a bus in March 2016.

A man in the three-minute video was heard threatening to kill the tour guide on the bus in the city of Sanya, in Hainan province. He also shouted: I tell you this, I have loads of money. Go and find out what I do.

The woman beside him later shouted to the guide that her younger son was a journalist and her older son worked at the provincial public security bureau, and they could make him lose his job.The tour guide was heard asking them to be polite, which only led to them swearing at him even more.

A woman was photographed standing on an airline check-in counter and complaining loudly about flight delays at an airport in China in February 2016.

Airline staff and even a few passengers seemed oblivious to her antics at Zhoushuizi International Airport in Dalian, Liaoning province. Most passengers, however, looked surprised at her behaviour.

She was expressing her discontent after 102 flights had been cancelled and another 22 diverted to other airports due to snow and sleet, stranding a large number of travellers at the airport.

The authorities on the islands of Phi Phi in Thailand were set to put up signs in public toilets telling tourists not to clean their feet in the wash basins.

Photographs of travellers cleaning their feet in the basins have caused disquiet among local residents.Locals regard the behaviour as a cultural sin, because in their tradition, feet should be washed in a separate basin from the other parts of the body.

A passenger on Thai flight got into a row with cabin crew when they refused to open a flight door so he could smoke during a refuelling stop in December 2015.

Orient Thai Airlines Flight 8223 left Bangkok for Phuket, but weather concerns forced the pilots to divert and land at Surat Thani Airport, about 200km north of the destination.

While the plane was refuelling, the passenger approached flight staff and demanded they open the door.Refused, he began to rail against the flight attendants, a witness said. Fortunately, some warm-hearted passengers stepped in and stopped the disaster.

A Pennsylvania State University professor was detained in December 2015 after police escorted him off an international flight because he tried to sneak into a better class of seat.

Lu Yong was aboard United Airlines Flight 87 waiting to leave for New York when he tried to self-upgrade from economy to business class - twice.
Flight attendants who discovered him in the wrong seat asked him to move, but he refused.

The parents of a toddler let the child defecate on the floor of an airliner about to take off from an airport in eastern China in August 2015.
The mother of the child said the toilets were too small for her, the child and another relative to all get inside.

A passenger on the Shenzhen Airlines flight from Nanjing to Guangzhou said two lavatories on the plane were vacant at the time.



Tourism Observer

CHINA: US$4.5 Billion Education Tourism

Top overseas universities reporting record numbers of Chinese tourists this summer as more middle-class Chinese parents expose their children to wider academic horizons.

Shanghai middle-schooler Chen Mingxuan doesn’t intend to study at Oxford or Cambridge but her visit to the two top British universities this month left a deep impression on her.

Every house has centuries-old stories to tell, the teenager wrote in her travel diary. Just touching the stones, the bricks of each house, I can feel the campus’ heartbeat They hold plenty of stories, of big achievements, great discoveries.

Mingxuan’s parents organised the trip to give the 15-year-old a taste of British culture but they were not alone – Oxford and Cambridge were crowded with busloads of Chinese tourists.

I saw groups of Chinese student tourists everywhere, she said. When I took pictures, they would enter the frame of my shot.

Top overseas universities are reporting record numbers of Chinese tourists this summer as more middle-class Chinese tiger parents try to expose their children to wider academic horizons.

Education tourism is a booming business in China – it raked in 30 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) in revenue last year is expected to grow 30 per cent annually to hit a trillion yuan within a decade.

Some 650,000 Chinese went on overseas study trips last year, Beijing Daily reported this month. The figure was an estimated 500,000 two years ago, according to Shanghai-based 2limi.com in 2015.

One company, Shanghai-based One Smart Education Group, has been organising study trips since 2006 and has seen the number of its clients grow by at least 70 per cent a year, according to deputy general manager Zachary Liu Zeyang.

This summer, One Smart is sending more than 450 students to visit top universities in Britain and the United States. A three-week trip to Britain – taking in big-name institutions like Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London as well as enrolment talks and cultural field trips – costs 50,000 yuan (US$7,500).

Liu said one of the main draws of the tours was that they were led by Chinese students who were top scorers in China’s national college entrance exam and enrolled at the universities.

He said the students on the trips could relate to the tour leaders and be inspired by them because they were close in age.
For a very small cost, the children learn whether studying overseas is suitable for them and what kind of universities they prefer, Liu said. They return with greater confidence and are more motivated to focus on their studies.

Joe Chiu, country manager of the EF Education First International Language Centre China, said the firm’s short-term overseas courses for teenagers had been growing at a double-digit rate in recent years and expected enrolment to double in the next couple of years.

The US and Britain attracted most student tourists in summer vacations, in line with the fact that these two countries were the top destinations for Chinese students to study abroad, Chiu said. Other popular countries for study tours included Australia, Canada and Singapore.

A 21-day tour to Boston and New York that included visiting Harvard University and meeting students attending the college, cost around US$7,000 to US$8,000 per person, the manager said. The package was targeted at Chinese pupils aged between 10 and 14.

There is an increasing demand for overseas study tours, Chiu said. Our company started enrolling members for this summer’s overseas tour groups last September. We received so many applicants that openings for many popular packages had been snapped up by February.

But the sheer number of tourists converging on these university towns can not only affect the visitors’ experience but also the residents’ way of life.

A councillor in Oxford took to Twitter this month to describe the area as “tourist hell” in the summer. And in March, a Cambridge University college shut to the public for the first time in its 700-year history after campus staff complained of busloads of tourists, mostly Chinese and Japanese, turning up unannounced and trespassing into students’ bedrooms, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Beijing resident Wang Zhao saw the scale of interest first-hand on his recent trip to Oxford with his five-year-old son.
Visiting the campus was like being in a big Chinese student tour, he said. I saw our countrymen’s faces everywhere and Chinese was being spoken all the time.

Shanghai resident Nancy Zhao took her 10-year-old son Johnny Yang on a tour of Harvard University in July but her son did not seem to share her enthusiasm for the institution.

But to be honest, my son looked unimpressed with the campus. To him, Harvard is just a top world university. That’s all, Zhao said.
Personally, I’m intrigued with the campus. I liked its houses, which are historical and different from modern buildings in Chinese universities.

She said it was a shame they did not get to visit the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology, another top US university. The school had refused entry to all tour groups, she was told.

My husband hopes our son can become a science and technology major. MIT is the best in this regard. So we really hoped Johnny could have a look around this university, she said.

I believe the trips to these top schools will be embedded in my son’s memories and will inspire him to study hard when he grows older she further said.



Tourism Observer

CHINA: Shangri-La Hotel Putian To Open 2020 In Fujian Province

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts announced the development of a new urban resort in Fujian Province at a groundbreaking ceremony in the Chengxiang District of Putian, scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2020, Shangri-La Hotel, Putian will be the group’s third property in Fujian Province, following Shangri-La hotels in Fuzhou and Xiamen.

Renowned for being the origin of Mazu, the Goddess of the Sea in Chinese culture, Putian is a well-known cultural city with a history of more than 1,400 years. It has distinctive advantages of coastal scenery and cultural tourism resources.

In recent years, Putian has successfully diversified its economy.

As an important manufacturing centre on China’s Southeast Coast, the city is being transformed and upgraded, resulting in a new level of innovation and growth.

Real estate and tourism developments are flourishing, while cultural and creative industries are being explored as new directions.

Dedicated to bringing a new international, luxurious hospitality experience to the city, Shangri-La Hotel, Putian will have 247 well-appointed guest rooms offering panoramic views of the city and Yanshou river.

The hotel will include a lobby lounge, restaurants, spa, fitness centre, swimming pool and a 1,200-square-metre ballroom.

Next to the hotel will be a lively mix of restaurants, bars and retail shops set in a 3,500-square-metre village-style plaza.

The hotel is conveniently located within a 20-minute drive from the train station.

Uniquely positioned at the juncture of history and modernity, Shangri-La Hotel, Putian will pay tribute to the river town’s ancient heritage as well as harmony between man and nature.

The hotel overlooks Yanshou River southward and the landmark Shouxi Park, which is one of the largest ecological city parks in Fujian Province.

The hotel is also adjacent to the renowned Yanshou Village, where the millennium-old Yanshou Bridge, a 900-year-old litchi tree (“The Champion Red”) and a collection of antique temples and ancestral halls are found.

The entire area will be protected and developed into a folk culture village by the local government to create a destination for leisure, recreation, culture and tourism.

Shangri-La Asia Chief Executive Officer Mr. LIM Beng Chee said, Putian has remarkable economic potential for both business and tourism, which presents a great opportunity for the goup. The design and construction of Shangri-La Hotel, Putian will reflect a distinctive blend of nature and culture. We look forward to creating a unique dining and stay experience for guests and local residents, and to bringing a dynamic lifestyle experience to the city.



Tourism Observer
www.tourismobserver.com

CHINA: Handcycling Team Tours China

A handcycling team called Krankin'thru China is currently in the midst of its tour around China which started in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, and will end in Beijing later this month.

Over the last three months, the team has cycled more than 5,500 kilometers through 10 provinces in China including Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui.

We hope to reach every corner of China in the future, and to introduce the sport of handcycling to more people with disabilities, inspiring them to lead a positive and healthy lifestyle,Joshua Dominick, a team member from the United States, said after the team arrived in Shanghai over the weekend from Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

This is not the first time Krankin'thru China has attempted such a tour.

The first was from Shangri-la to Hongkong in 2015 while the other was from from Dali to Jinghong, both of which are in Yunnan province, in 2016. The distance of this year's tour is the longest they have attempted.

Some of the team members have suffered injuries during the arduous journey.

Pan Yifei, a handcyclist from Beijing, said he once got seriously injured after skidding on a slippery mountain road because his brakes had failed.

But despite the challenges, the team is determined to complete this year's tour.

Although the journeys are full of challenges, we will continue to cycle with disabled individuals and organizations and help people push their own limits, said another team member named Wang Feng.



Tourism Observer
www.tourismobserver.com

CHINA: Forest City Comming To Liuzhou

Beijing’s smog sufferers may soon have another oasis thanks to eco-conscious urban planning by Italian architecture firm Stefano Boeri Architetti.

On Monday, the designers broke ground on its aptly named ‘forest city’ development in the southern Chinese city of Liuzhou, which will consist of buildings covered in hundreds of thousands plants and trees set to reduce the pollution in the area.

The eco-friendly metropolis is designed to absorb 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 57 tons of pollutants per year and house about 30,000 residents, which is about .07 percent of Liuzhou’s population.

It’s likely the amenities will be comparable to the designer’s similar apartment complex in Milan’s Porta Nuova district, the Bosco Verticale, or Vertical Forest, which commands £1.7 million for a 200-square-meter penthouse.

In China, the Liuzhou development will also feature hotels to host visitors seeking fresh-air as well as an escape from the concrete jungle.

Smog-fueled tourism has already seen a boom in the country—late last year, dangerously high levels of pollution in Beijing and surrounding areas prompted wealthy residents to travel to coastal cities in China, beach resorts, ski resorts, and even out of the country entirely.

Ctrip estimated at the time that 150,000 travelers would book trips abroad in December just to get away from the capital’s poor air quality.

Nanjing in China’s eastern Jiangsu province may soon also be added to the travel destination list, should there be a similar pollution-fueled travel boom.

Stefano Boeri confirmed in April it would be building two skyscrapers in Jiangsu’s capital that will have around 3,600 trees and plants, and will house a 247-room Hyatt hotel and a museum.

Stefano Boeri’s forest developments are also slated for other Chinese cities.

Mountainous Guizhou in southwest China is expected to get a hotel, Shanghai’s Pudong Airport may soon see a “sky jungle” and Chongqing may get a suburban complex featuring “seeding hortiecture.”



Tourism Observer
www.tourismobserver.com

CHINA: Huangling Attracts Visitors From All Over The World

Located in Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province, China, Huangling attracts visitors from all over the world. The quaint and elegant village has preserved and maintained its ancient Hui-style architecture and offers an authentic Chinese countryside travel experience.

Praised as the most beautiful countryside in China, the unique view of shaiqiu can only be found in Huangling, where baskets of colorful harvest bask in the sunshine.

Huangling, China's most beautiful countryside, has embarked on a journey to promote the village's unique cultural heritage and folk customs across Eurasia as part of The Tea Road (China), which is holding a series of events to highlight the influential history and modern potentials.

The first TRC roadshow took place in Ulan-Ude, capital of the Republic of Buryatia in the Russian Federation during the 2nd China-Russia-Mongolia Tourism Ministers' Meeting, and will be followed by sessions in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

Huangling's folk heritage belongs not only to China, but to the world.

Visitors to the village have much to explore, from the unique shaiqiu custom inspired by the distinctive landscape to the traditional handcrafts and festival celebrations, we hope to show the beauty and charm of Huangling to tourists worldwide as we travel along The Tea Road, said Cao Jinzhong, executive vice president of Wuyuan Rural Culture Development Co., Ltd.

Huangling is most known for its shaiqiu spectacle, where the locals sun dry harvests like chili peppers and pumpkin slices in bamboo baskets on rooves to preserve the foods in the humid climate. The vibrant scene of colorful produce against the quaint Hui-style architectures attracts crowds of visitors from around the world every year.

Strolling through the ancient village, visitors can also find celebrated ancient handcrafts like inkstone engraving, paper umbrellas, classic wood oil, and embroidery.

Huangling will also take part in the Sino-Foreign most beautiful shooting location contest at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. The competition will highlight the village's serene natural scenery, rich history and folk traditions.

Huangling offers a grandiose view of rapeseed flowers in spring, outdoor adventures like creek rafting and mountaineering in summer, peak shaiqiu viewing in autumn and nostalgic festival experiences in winter. The one-of-a-kind experiences that visitors encounter are a combination of farming traditions and cultural heritage, said Cao.


Tourism Observer
www.tourismobserver.com

CHINA: After Accidentally Breaking US$44,000 Jade Bracelet, Chinese Tourist Faints

A Chinese tourist had a panic attack and fainted after she accidentally broke a jadeite bracelet priced at 300,000 yuan (US$44,110) in a shop in southwestern Yunnan province.

The woman, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, tried on the bracelet in a shop in the city of Ruili, a major jade trading centre. But when she took it off, it slipped from her hands and broke in two on the tiled floor.

After being told the cost of the bracelet, she had a panic attack, made a call to her friends, and told shop staff that she felt dizzy.

Woman ends up in hospital after passing out in the arms of bystanders when told how much the broken piece of jewellery cost.

As people nearby tried to calm her down, her lips turned pale and she broke out in a cold sweat before suddenly losing consciousness, the report said.

Pictures of her falling into the arms of bystanders have been circulating widely online.

She fainted because of the shock, but fortunately she is fine after having emergency treatment in hospital Lin Wei, one of the shop’s owners, was quoted as saying.

Shop owners did not report the incident to the police and said they were negotiating appropriate compensation with the woman based on her financial situation.

The broken bracelet was valued at 180,000 yuan by a third-party association under government supervision.

Jade has a special significance in Chinese culture, and is seen as representing purity and having the ability to ward off evil and even to bring long life.

CHINA: Husband And Wife Fight At Airport, Pilot Declines To Allow Them On The Plane

A man and woman were detained at an airport in southwest China on Tuesday for brawling on the tarmac as they were boarding their flight, which was delayed for half an hour, a local news portal reports.

Couple, who were boarding their flight in Yunnan, said to be undergoing divorce negotiations

The incident happened at Kunming airport in Yunnan province as they were boarding a China Eastern Airlines flight to Chengdu, Sichuan province, that was parked on the tarmac..

Police said the two passengers were husband and wife, who were in the course of divorce negotiations when the fight broke out.

The husband without his shirt, fighting with his wife on the tarmac. The couple late tried to enfer the aircraft but were barred by the pilot.

The couple started to quarrel after stepping off an airfield passenger bus. While other passengers boarded the plane, the pair lingered at the foot of the aircraft steps and eventually broke into a fight, according to witnesses.

The woman was pinned on the ground by the man, whose shirt was torn off by the woman.

When they stopped fighting, the couple tried to board the plane but the captain refused and called airport security instead.

The plane took off at 11.30am following a half-hour delay, and arrived in Chengdu an hour later.

Police said they couple were severely criticised for their behaviour, which violated airport safety, and offered them counselling before releasing them without charge.

CHINA: Vegetable Vendor Flees After Picking Bag With US$48,500 On The Street

A vegetable seller fled from the city where she works in eastern China after she found a bag containing 330,000 yuan (US$48,500) in the street.

Police were able to identify the woman using surveillance camera footage and traced her to her home town a week later.

The bag was dropped on the road from the back seat of an electric bike when its owner, the boss of a logistics firm, was riding the vehicle to his company in Nanjing in Jiangsu province on May 30.

About a minute later, the vegetable seller rode past on a motorcycle and picked up the snakeskin bag.

Rather than handing it in to the police, the woman fled to her home town in neighbouring Anhui province the same day.

Other traders working at the market where the woman sold vegetables told the police she had not been seen for several days, the report said.

After the police showed up at her home, the woman said she would have returned the bag if she had watched the TV news and known the owner was looking for the money.

CHINA: What Is The Canton Fair?

The Canton Fair is a trade fair held in the spring and autumn seasons each year since the spring of 1957 in Canton (Guangzhou), China.

Its full name since 2007 has been China Import and Export Fair, renamed from Chinese Export Commodities Fair, also known as The Canton Fair.

The Canton Fair is co-hosted by the Ministry of Commerce of China and People's Government of the Guangdong Province, and organized by China Foreign Trade Centre.

The Canton Fair is the largest trade fair in China. Among China's largest trade fairs, it has the largest assortment of products, the largest attendance, and the largest number of business deals made at the fair.

Like many trade fairs it has several traditions and functions as a comprehensive event of international importance.

Fifty product trading categories, being composed of thousands of China's best foreign trade corporations or enterprises, take part in the fair.

These include private enterprises, factories, scientific research institutions, wholly foreign-owned enterprises, and foreign trade companies.

The fair leans to export trade, though import business is also done here. Apart from the above-mentioned, various types of business activities such as economic and technical cooperation and exchange, commodity inspection, insurance, transportation, advertising, and trade consultation are other activities that are also commonly carried out at the fair.

First held: April 1957.

Interval: Three phases per session; two sessions per year.

Spring session: April 15–19 (Phase 1); April 23–27 (Phase 2); May 1–5 (Phase 3). (115th Session)

Autumn session: October 15–19 (Phase 1); October 23–27 (Phase 2); October 31- November 4 (Phase 3).

Industries:

Phase 1: Electronics, household electrical appliances, machinery, lighting equipment, hardware and tools, vehicles and spare parts, building materials, chemical products.

Phase 2: Consumer products,decorations goods, gifts.

Phase 3: Textiles & garments, shoes, office supplies, cases & bags, recreation products, medicines, medical devices and health products

Venue:

China Import and Export Fair (Pazhou) Complex, 380 Yuejiangzhong Road, Haizhu District, Guangzhou 510335

Gross exhibition space: 1,125,000 m².

Number of booths: Over 55,800 standard stands (105th Session).

Varieties: Over 150,000.

Business turnover: 262.3 Million USD (105th Session).

Number of trading countries and regions: 203 (103rd Session).

Number of visitors: 165,436 (105th Session).

Exhibitors: Over 22,000 with 21,709 Chinese exhibitors, 395 international exhibitors, 105th Session.

CHINA: Air France Bans Woman Student After Slapping Airport Staff

A woman passenger has been placed in detention for 10 days and blacklisted by Air France after she slapped a member of staff at an airport in central China, Chinese media.

The woman lost her temper after she was told by ground staff that check-in for her flight from Wuhan to Paris had closed fourteen minutes earlier on Thursday morning.

Staff advised her to alter or refund her tickets, but the woman refused saying she was about to go abroad to take part in an important conference.

She then rushed to the staff working area and slapped a member of staff twice after negotiations failed, the report said.

Police were called and arrested the woman, whose real name was not given.. She has now been blacklisted from taking flights on Air France.

The woman, a 36-year-old doctoral student from a prestigious university in Wuhan, was with her husband and child when the incident occurred.

Internet users in China strongly criticised her actions and said harsher punishments should have been enforced.

Domestic flight companies should also blacklist the woman and all flights should refuse to take this kind of passenger, one person wrote.

Another said: So barbarous and wayward. Did she major in kick-boxing for a doctoral degree?

CHINA: Hong Kong International Airport In Stiff Competion From Mainland China Airports

Increased demand is giving a boost to all five airports in Pearl River Delta region, but mainland hubs are growing more rapidly.

There was joy in the streets of Foshan’s backwater Gaoming district in mid-April when Guangdong Communist Party secretary Hu Chunhua affirmed plans to build an airport there by 2022.

The new, 35 billion yuan (US$5.1 billion) Pearl River Delta regional airport, designed to handle 30 million passengers a year, will be a key piece in the province’s ambitious plan to have 31 big and small airports by 2030.

It will join the delta’s five existing key air hubs – Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai – to serve a dynamic area that’s home 66 million people and has an economy as big as South Korea’s.

While mainland China has many airports with few passengers – three-quarters of its 200-plus airports run at a loss – rapid growth in demand for passenger and cargo services in the delta is giving a boost to all five airports, with Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shenzhen accounting for the most traffic.

Concerns about excessive competition between the airports were unwarranted for now, said Law Cheung-kwok, head of the Aviation Policy and Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, because the overall market was still growing.

Passenger numbers can increase in a geometric ratio in the coming years,fuelled by the strong demand of Chinese spenders for travel and the emerging Chinese consumer economy, Law said, while adding that Hong Kong would see “fiercer” competition from mainland airports that were aggressively launching new long-haul flights.

Hong Kong’s role as an international air hub was once highly valued by Guangdong, which saw the city as its gateway to the outside world.

High-value products from factories in the Pearl River Delta used to be trucked into Hong Kong before being flown to overseas markets, but the flow has been changing, especially since the launch of Guangzhou’s new airport in 2004 and Shenzhen’s in 2013.

Hong Kong International Airport, the leading airport in the region, handled 70.5 million passengers last year, up 2.9 per cent year on year.

In comparison, Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport handled 59.7 million passengers, up 8.2 per cent. Shenzhen handled 42 million passengers, up 5.6 per cent, and Zhuhai handled 6.1 million, which represented annual growth of 30.2 per cent.

A record 6.6 million passengers passed through Macau airport last year, up 13.7 per cent year on year.

The five major airports, all within 150km of each other, are all striving to expand. Guangzhou plans to add a fourth and a fifth runway by 2025 and Shenzhen has plans in place for a third. Hong Kong aims to open a third runway by 2023 to boost capacity to 100 million passengers a year.

Guangzhou’s existing Terminal 1 was only designed to handle 35 million passengers a year, but a second, bigger, terminal will open next year.

Expected to handle around 45 million passengers a year by 2020, the new terminal is being built at a cost of about 19 billion yuan.

Shenzhen is also planning a new terminal, with passenger traffic at the four-year-old airport now just 3 million short of its 45 million capacity.

However, Zhuhai, billed as China’s biggest airport when it opened in 1995, has never come close to its 35 million passenger annual capacity.

People like retiree Zhu Yinghua and businessman Huang Honghui are making the most of the leisure and business opportunities provided by the region’s increasing air traffic.

Zhu, a 65-year-old retired teacher from Guangzhou, made three overseas trips last year, visiting Russia, Turkey and the United States with her husband and friends.

The trips cost between 6,000 and 10,000 yuan, quite affordable for retired teachers and civil servants in cities such as Guangzhou who receive monthly pensions of more than 6,000 yuan.

It’s much easier to travel to the other end of the world these days than travelling to Shanghai 20 years ago, said Zhu, who had never flown until 1993, when she was 41, and who made her first overseas trip in 1996 when she visited Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia via Hong Kong.

I have to say now I like the Shenzhen and Guangzhou airports very much. They are more beautiful and modern than any other airport in China, including Beijing or Hong Kong.

The number of tourists heading overseas from mainland China has more than tripled in the past decade, hitting 122 million last year, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen are among the top sources.

The “Greater Bay Area”, a region which includes Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and some other mainland cities, is becoming the world’s biggest market for aviation services.

Passenger numbers in the region will reach 223 million a year by 2020, up from around 175 million last year, according to the China Civil Airports Association, which said such traffic would dwarf other bay areas such as Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo.

Airports in the Tokyo Bay Area, home to 43 million people in 2015, handled more than 112 million passengers that year.

Hong Kong, the world’s largest international air cargo airport, handled 4.5 millions tonnes of air cargo last year according to the Airport Authority, and the China Civil Airports Association predicts annual cargo throughput in the region, presently about 8 million tonnes, will top 10 million tonnes by 2020.

Huang, the 40-year-old co-founder of leading Guangzhou air logistics company R&T Transportation, says business is booming, with the firm handling about 5,000 tonnes of cargo a month, more than triple the amount a decade ago.

I started up my logistics business 20 years ago and most clients are factories in the delta, from electronics giants like Huawei and Samsung to garment processors, Huang said.

In 1997, my company handled an average of 500 tonnes of cargo a month, 90 per cent of which was exported through Hong Kong airport.

He said Guangzhou’s airport now handled three-fifths of R&T’s shipments because it was closer to most clients.

If we pick up a delivery at 6pm, we can catch the flights leaving Guangzhou at 2am it would take about two days to fly through Hong Kong, Huang said.

Meanwhile, airports in Southwest China cities such as Kunming in Yunnan province and Chengdu in Sichuan province were grabbing air cargo business from Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

It took three days to travel from Kunming to Guangzhou by truck 10 years ago, Huang said.

But now, thanks for the rapid development of China’s highway network, it only takes one day. Flying out of Kunming airport would help cut costs by 30 per cent compared with Hong Kong airport.

R&T now handles about 1,000 tonnes of air freight a month in Kunming.

Local authorities in major mainland cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xian, Zhengzhou and Shenzhen were handing out generous subsidies and extra investment for local airports so they could operate more international routes, in line with the central government’s “belt and road” trade and infrastructure initiative.

For example, the government of Zhengzhou, in Henan province, is offering subsidies of up to 300,000 yuan per overseas flight, Huang said.

While Hong Kong will remain a busy airport, its relative regional significance is set to wane as mainland airports get bigger and mainland airlines improve their hardware.

Mainland Chinese carriers bought 164 Boeing planes last year, about a quarter of Boeing’s total deliveries and the most from any country.

The mainland’s three designated hubs – Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou – are trying hard to gain a prominent foothold on the global flight map.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, almost all tour groups from South China flew via Hong Kong, but times have changed. When Zhu, the Guangzhou pensioner, flew to New York from Guangzhou last year she transited in Beijing because it’s 1,500 yuan cheaper than flying through Hong Kong.

Zhou Guosheng, a Guangzhou-based tour guide who has been in the business since the 1990s and now specialises in luxury overseas trips, said: A night in Hong Kong plus shopping time was once standard, but not any more.

Big mainland airports are even trying to lure non-Chinese travellers, who are now offered 72-hour transit visas.

Hong Kong’s airport will see growing challenges from mainland ones, according to Guangzhou-based aviation researcher Peng Peng, who predicted Guangzhou would overtake Hong Kong airport in passenger numbers within 10 years.

AFRICA: Africa Needs More Chinese Tourists

China has recently become the largest outbound tourist market in the world. The number of Chinese tourists traveling worldwide has grown to over a 100 million, likely to double by 2020. In 2013 Chinese tourists spent a total $102 billion dollars on their trips.

When Chinese-looking persons enter the Nairobi City Market or Massai Market Fair in Kenya’s capital, they are often greeted with “Ni Hao” as they pass shops and stands. Some local shop-keepers have a broader Mandarin vocabulary, which helps them sell African woodcarvings, fabric, or other local souvenirs to Chinese tourists.

Those numbers are expected to keep rising. Many Chinese are weary of traditional destinations, such as Europe and North America. So they are turning to Africa as a great place to spend an exotic vacation.

The numerous bilateral exchanges between China and Africa have encouraged Chinese tourism in African countries. In 2008 only 2.8 % of Chinese tourists chose Africa as a destination.

In 2014, according to the China Outbound Travel Development Report, that number has reached 9.4 %. The annual growth rate of Chinese tourist traffic to Africa has been 50% since 2010 - higher than to any other part of the world.

The most popular destination for Chinese tourists is South Africa; with direct flights currently available between Beijing and Johannesburg. Derek Hanekom, Tourism Minister of South Africa, says China is one of the important sources of tourists for his country and pledges to help create more conveniences to welcome Chinese travelers.

Other destinations popular among the Chinese are Egypt, Kenya, Cameroon, Senegal, Algeria, Angola, Mauritius, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe.

Since the Chinese government has granted Kenya an Approved Destination Status for outbound tourism in 2004, the number of Chinese tourists going there has risen. In 2013, 37,000 Chinese visited Kenya.

The same year, on a visit to China, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta said his country’s tourism industry had set the goal of attracting a record number of 1.3 million Chinese.

Tourism in Kenya is popular in the summer when migration of animals can be observed in its national parks. When China Central Television (CCTV) aired live broadcasts of the migration of rhinos, zebras, and wilder beasts in 2012-13, that became a well-known wonder in China.

That has attracted thousands of Chinese during the summer season to Kenya.

Zhang Hongtao, director of AA lodges in Kenya, said, Now Chinese tourists book hotels six months in advance to get a room nearby even when the accommodation price doubles or triples.

The majority of Chinese tourists prefer big organized group trips within budget. About 10% of them, however, are high-end travelers who spend 4-5 times more money than the average tourist.

People in this category travel in smaller groups and avoid rough roads by taking charter flights to national parks.

They use secluded private lodges instead of hotels. While in Europe they may buy luxury brands, in South Africa their interests are diamonds.

Some of Kenya’s tour-operators, including Safari Collection, Governor’s Camp, and Loisaba Wilderness, cooperate with Chinese counterparts to promote luxury services.

There are some important tips from experts, which would be helpful to Africans in their attempts to attract more Chinese tourists and make their experience more enjoyable:

1.African governments should make tourism a greater priority on their national agenda by taking the following steps:

a). Improve safety measures around tourist sites.

b). Enhance tourism-related infrastructure.

c). Ease visa procedures for Chinese travelers.

d). Spend more on tourism promotion, which brings much easier and quicker economic returns than industrial investments.

Currently, only few African countries, such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Morocco have set up tourist promoting agencies in China.

If the Chinese overcome the stereotypical international fear of travel in Africa and realize what a great experience it could be, the number of their visits there would skyrocket.

2.African service and hospitality sector needs to:

a). Hire more Chinese-speakers. Many Chinese business travelers might know English, but their families members who come on a safari often might not.

b). Offer Chinese food at National Park lodges, porridge and noodles for breakfast, complimentary green tea, and hot water – all good gestures of Chinese hospitality.

Many National Park lodges in Kenya, for example do not offer any Chinese food. Some Chinese tourists, especially seniors, may enjoy their safaris, but can’t wait to return to Nairobi for Chinese food.

Even though Chinese travelers, like others, might sometimes be discouraged by problems including the Ebola epidemic in 2013-14 or an occasional terrorist assault, Chinese tourism in Africa will flourish.

Yang Jinsong, a professor of international tourism at the China Tourism Academy, considers this phenomenon astounding. “The number of Chinese tourists to Africa will rise, and rise greatly” said Yang.

South Africa is targeting Chinese and Indian tourists after relaxing its visa rules.

South Africa’s tourism industry is recovering from an ill-fated experiment with stricter visa regulations. The country welcomed nearly 3 million tourists in January this year, 15% up on a year ago, according to the tourism ministry this week.

In the last quarter of 2015, the number of tourists from China fell by nearly half, and visitors from India dropped by 15%, according to the South African Tourism Services Association.

Tourism has consistently made up 3% of South Africa’s economy in the last decade, and is a key source of jobs and foreign income, according to Statistics South Africa, a government agency.

Tourism minister Derek Hanekom attributed the revitalized growth to South Africa’s weakened currency, the elimination of the Ebola outbreak all the way over in West Africa, and scrapping controversial visa restrictions.

The laws were relaxed earlier this year but it could take up to five years for the industry to fully recover, Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO Mmatati Ramawela said.

In October 2014, South Africa’s Home Affairs department introduced new laws that required all visitors to have their bio-metric data captured in person at an embassy or official visa center.

Children were required to travel with a certified unabridged birth certificate and the written consent of a parent where the child was traveling with one parent or a relative.

The new regulations were aimed at a broad number of issues to “balance South Africa’s openness to legitimate travelers,” home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba said at the time. His department’s main concerns were South Africa’s porous borders and national security.

But it was the legitimate travelers who may have been worst affected, especially from China and India. The tourism minister Hanekom has since traveled to China and India to reassure visitors that South Africa is once again a hassle-free dream destination.

The improved numbers still reflect a bias toward countries that have historically favored passports. Eight of the top ten visiting nationalities come from countries that don’t need visas, meaning remaining restrictions are still deterring a huge tourism market in the developing world.

South Africa is also missing out on tourists from its own continent. More than 98% of African tourists who visited South Africa, all came from countries within the Southern African Development Community.

Citizens of the 15-member trade and diplomatic community do not need visas to travel within the community, a model South Africa, and the rest of the continent, may want to consider expanding.

South Africa saw a huge increase of Chinese tourists in January and the country is expecting a Chinese tourist boom with a series of measures to facilitate their coming, according to South Africa's digital publishing house.

The report said data from Statistics South Africa show that 1,012,641 tourist arrivals to South Africa were recorded in January this year, up 15 percent from that of the same month last year.

It is the first time South Africa had more than one million tourist arrivals in a month, it said.

The report said 79 percent arrived from African countries and the others were from overseas. And of the overseas visitors, arrivals from China grew by 93 percent.

South Africa Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom indicated that despite China's economic slow-down, there is an expected boom of Chinese tourists in South Africa, the report said.

It said a series of measures have been taken to attract expected Chinese tourists.

With an Accredited Travel Company program in China, which was announced by the Department of Home Affairs of South Africa in January, Chinese travelers to South Africa don't need to make in-person applications at visa processing centers any more.

There's also no requirement for Chinese nationals to have transit visas to travel to South Africa's neighboring countries.

South Africa also opened new visa facilitation centers in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. The country already had visa centers in Beijing and Shanghai. Five more centers are expected to be open at the end of April in another five provincial capitals.

We are confident that the number of tourists visiting South Africa from China will grow significantly this year. Our discussions with the Chinese travel trade have included measures on how to make the best of the expected boom, Hanekom said.

In 2015, China was the world's top outbound tourist market, with more than 100 million Chinese traveling abroad.

With the opening of direct flights, relaxation of visa regimes and other incentives, many African countries are expecting the arrival of more Chinese tourists.

In 2015, China Southern Airlines launched flights to Kenya's capital, Nairobi, from Guangzhou and Air China also launched direct flights from Beijing to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.