China ‘saturated’ with tourists

Press, 5 July 1978, Page 11

China ‘saturated’ with tourists

NZPA Peking. China is luring the foreign tourists — 90,000 are expected here this year — but facilities to deal with them are approaching saturation point. The number of foreign tourists rose from about 4000 in 1965 to 50,000 last year, the deputy managing director of the China International Travel Service (C.1.T.5.), Mr Wan Fu, told a group of correspondents. Mr Wan said that he expected the number to remain about 100.000 for the next two years until facilities could be expanded. The total did not include Chinese living abroad, businessmen, or official delegations. In future, said Mr Wan, China could develop tourism only gradually, “step by step along with the development of the national economy, so we do not think the future rate of increase will be too big.” China’s tourist potential is fully recognised here. It is a vast country with an ancient culture and civilisation and offers sites of historical — and revolutionary — interest and great beauty. “The main aim of developing tourism in China is to promote mutual understanding,” Mr Wan said. But he quickly added: “It can also make a (financial) contribution to the

building of socialism in China.” Government interest in tourism was emphasised at a national conference in Peking last January, when Vice-Premier Li Hsien-nien gave what the New China News Agency described as “important instruction” to delegates. With the steady increase in visitors, the China Travel Tourism Administrative Bureau (formed in 1964) was this year turned into the more powerful General Administrative Bureau of Travel and Tourism in China under the State Council (Government). Four new provinces — Szechwan, Yunnan, Kansu, and Anhwei — and two autonomous regions, Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia, have been opened this year. This leaves only Fu kien (opposite Taiwan) N i n g s i a . Kweichow, Tsinghai, and Tibet still closed to tourists. Mr Wan said that tourism’s main problem now lay in the facilities. “We do not have enough hotels. In the first half of this year we had 40,000 tourists and the hotels were very crowded. Also we do not have enough coaches, and the ones we do have are not so well equipped as foreign buses. “Although the number of tourists is not so large, they come from about 60 countries and regions so we need interpreters. For

certain foreign languages we do not have enough interpreters and for some languages we don’t have any at all” he added. Mr Wan said that there were enough guides speaking English, French and Japanese “but we are short of German and Scandinavian speakers in the provinces, for example.” Foreign residents in China have also noticed the strain put on facilities by the tourist influx; seats on trains and planes can be a problem, hotel accommodation is short and at times it is impossible to get a taxi in Peking. There were plans to help overcome the problems, but tourist needs had to be balanced against other demands. Interpreters, for example, were needed by organisations outside the tourist services, Mr Wan said. There were also plans to build hotels in various parts of the country, but the bottlenecks of Peking, Shanghai, and Canton — the three main entry and exit points — should get priority. Mr Wan was unable to give the profit margin for the state or per capita expenditure by tourists, but he said the average tourist would spend about SUSSOO for a two-week visit. This included hotel accommodation, meals, guides and interpreters travel costs and luggage handling fees. A tourist in a ,arge group would pay a little less, while individual tourists would pay more for personal attention. Charges would also take into account the standard of hotel accommodation, and an air-conditioned room in the new wing of the Peking Hotel, for example, would cost more than a plain room at Peking’s Friendship Hotel some distance from the city centre. But tourists should remember to bring a supply of ready cash or travellers’ cheques acceptable in China: “There are no plans to use credit cards,” Mr Wan said.