This is the start of a flood of extra travel. As part of efforts to boost exchanges during the upcoming Beijing Olympics this summer, the Korean government has decided to enable visa-free travel between Korea and China.

The Justice Ministry said it would begin it on a trial basis from July to September this year, as it expects that there to be a significant increase in the number of Korean and Chinese tourists visiting each other’s countries. That it is a fair judgement.
Before the visa-free program, the ministry will also grant multiple visas from late March to frequent Chinese visitors, especially businessmen and their families.

It will also provide such visas for small-scale traders and residents of 30 advanced countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Officials say the program is expected to expand later to include a wider range of beneficiaries.

Also as a response to complaints that visa-free entry procedures for Chinese student trips that were introduced last year are still inconvenient, the ministry will no longer require passport submission and English interviews for teachers, and educational groups will also no longer need to fill out a group tourist entry form.

The minimum number of people to qualify as a tourist group will be cut from five to three.

Officials say the measures are expected to attract more tourists and help boost the Korean economy.

Last year, about 920,000 Chinese visited Korea, accounting for only 2.7% of the total number of Chinese traveling overseas but

Visitors who are brave enough will be able to interact with one of the Dalek figures that roam the concourse,

Helpful, full of information and only used by people under the age of, say, 21. Older people give it a wide berth even though it is great technology.
Source: Korea.net

Citigroup’s property investment arm plans to invest in a hotel owned by China’s Ginwa Enterprise, part of the U.S. investment bank’s program to acquire shopping malls and hotels in China’s major cities.

Citigroup will soon sign an agreement with Ginwa to invest in its five-star Howard Johnson Ginwa Plaza Hotel, in the northwestern city of Xian. It did not say how big a stake Citigroup was buying or for how much.

In February, Citigroup raised $1.29 billion in its Asia opportunities fund and plans to invest $600 million of the fund in China and $400 million in India.

David Schaefer, Asia head of Citigroup’s property investment arm, said in April that the Citigroup fund had already made three investments in Shanghai, including buying a 75% stake in the Novel Plaza office building, but was looking at up-and-coming second-tier cities including Xian and Chengdu in the west, as well Tianjin, which neighbours Beijing.

The Chinese government last year imposed restrictions on foreign investment to curb overseas speculation and a surge in domestic property prices.
Source: Reuters

Although there are still stories in some of the American press about the ‘genocide Olympics’ and profound articles as to whether there should be a boycott the tide is turning and the number of positive news stories is on the rise.

The LA Times, not known for its liberal and world-vision news, is positively burbling.
It writes that here are some of the things visitors will find going up around Beijing.

A third terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport. It is expected to welcome 43 million passengers a year and is seen in our illustration. It will come with a light rail line linking the airport to the city center’s Dongzhimen station in 18 minutes.
The 6,000-seat National Grand Theater has brought a bold, head-turning splash of modernism to the Tiananmen Square area.
Qianmen Street, with its small shops, tea houses and theaters, is being turned into a pedestrian mall, complete with a free tourist trolley and underground parking garage
Upscale shopping centers such as Oriental Plaza near Wangfujing and Shin Kong Place in the Central Business District have become commonplace in Beijing. But the Place, a new mall on the western side of the Central Business District, has something more than Adidas and Gucci: a 98-foot-wide LED screen suspended high over the courtyard, showing movies, promotional videos, satellite TV and shoppers’ own digitally uploaded photos.
Early in 2006, the China National Film Museum opened. The massive, state-of-the-art facility, has an Imax theater, four cinemas and a permanent exhibition on the history of Chinese film. Among its fascinations are a segment from
Ongoing restoration of some of the major sights in the Forbidden City, such as the Meridian Gate and the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Qianlong Garden is now being renovated.
In 2005, the Capital Museum, formerly near the Confucius Temple, moved to a striking new contemporary building near the Muxidi subway stop in western Beijing.
The city’s newest and most noteworthy avant-garde architecture — including Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’ CCTV Tower — clusters in the Central Business District along the Third Ring Road on the eastern side of the city.
The ‘Bird’s Nest’, the 91,000-seat stadium, designed as a mesh of twisting steel beams by Swiss and Chinese architects, is already a Beijing icon. The water cube next door on the Olympic Green has a translucent blue Teflon skin to optimize sunlight while minimizing heat.
The list of new places to stay reads like an international hotel beauty pageant: Hyatt Regency, Four Seasons, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton. By the opening of the Olympics on Aug. 8, the Chinese capital will have 130,000 beds, not including those in hotels not inspected and certified by the city’s tourism organization. Rates are expected to increase during the Games.

It burbles on a lot more than that but it is a remarkable piece telling the readers that Beijing is the place to visit above all others. And it may well be right.
Source: LA Times

Hilton Hotels has signed an agreement with Beijing Macau Development Company to manage the Hilton Wangfujing Beijing. It is scheduled to open before the Olympic Games in 2008 and it will be the one of the newest deluxe hotel offerings in the Wangfujing district, home to World Heritage Site, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

Koos Klein, president Asia Pacific Hilton Hotels Corporation, and seen in our illustration, said, ‘With its prime location, the Hilton Wangfujing Beijing will be a premier hotel for Hilton Hotels Corporation in China and a symbol of our goal to build a nationwide presence in China, across all market segments.’

There will be 266 guest rooms and a health club with spa and swimming pool. It will also be, in part, a MICE hotel with facilities for banquets and meetings. The Hilton Wangfujing Beijing will be housed in the new mixed use luxury development, Macau Center.

The hotel will be a 45-minute drive from the international airport.
Source: Asia Travel Tips

Deputy manager of the Beijing Capital International Airport, Gao Lijia, has said that with a combined flow of 48.65 million passengers, Beijing airport ranked among the top 10 airports globally in 2006. When its No. 3 terminal comes online at the end 2007 it will have a large commercial area of over 40,000 square meters for recreation, catering and shopping centers.

Size is not everything. On time performance is perhaps a better yardstick. Or, perhaps, customer satisfaction.

There is a site on airline and airport quality which deals specifically with Beijing Airport and the report card is somewhat mixed although, on the basis of this evidence, many of the problems are slight and could easily be corrected in time for the Olympics.
Source: People’s Daily Online