Mainland tourists arrive in Taiwan

Representatives of the nation’s airlines and the travel industry yesterday expressed high hopes for an upcoming meeting hoping it will address urgent issues and make substantial changes to cross-strait charter flight services.

Travel Agent Association chairman Yao Ta-kuan  said yesterday that the number of charter flights could be increased to at least 200 per week.

The meeting could also help add five more mainland airports to the list of those eligible for charter flights, he said.

Yao said the mainlandonly allows residents from 13 provinces to visit Taiwan and only 33 travel agencies on the mainland are authorized to arrange tour groups. He said he hoped these numbers would be at least doubled following the meeting.

Tony Su, chairman of the Taipei Airlines Association, said both sides had agreed during the first meeting in June that airline companies could start setting up offices on either side of the strait. However, Taiwanese airlines still cannot operate offices on the mainland the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has yet to stipulate guidelines that legalize such business operations in China.

Su said the safety of cross-strait charter flights was another critical issue.

While the two sides have reached a consensus to move from weekend-only charter flights to daily charter flights, Su said the number of Chinese tourists would also have to grow simultaneously.

He said, ‘There must be a real increase in the numbers of Chinese tourists and that increase cannot be just those who used to take transit flights via Hong Kong and Macau.’
Read more HERE.
Source: Taipei Times

Millbrook in New Zealand: amazing and empty

Spending by domestic travelers in New Zealand fell by $507 million or 6.4% to $7.39 billion in the year to June 2008, new research from the New Zealand Ministry of Tourism shows.

The biggest overseas loss came from China. Visitors from there dropped by a third, falling by 2,700 to 5,497 in September.

Ministry research manager Bruce Bassett said, ‘Weaker economic conditions and high fuel costs during the period are being reflected in a reduction in demand for travel, including domestic travel.’

The number of overnight trips fell by 5.5% from the previous year to 14.4 million trips, while the number of day trips dropped 15.5% to 25.9 million.

If the price of fuel stayed down in coming months, Bassett expected to see an increase in domestic activity, particularly in the number of day trips.

This research comes the same week that Statistics NZ unveiled a big drop in the number of international visitors last month.

It said tourist numbers fell 6.6 %, or 11,100 people, in September compared with the same month last year — the equivalent of 25 jumbo jets full of passengers.
Source: New Zealand Herald

Mao Chi-kuo

In Taiwan the Minister of Transportation and Communications has said he hopes the number of tourists coming to Taiwan from the mainland will increase through more direct flights and flight routes across the Taiwan Strait.

Mao declined to elaborate on how many more tourists he hopes to see, but he was quoted as saying in a recent radio interview that the hopes the number will increase to 1,000 per day.

Taiwan has a cap of 3,000 tourist arrivals from the mainland per day, but the actual arriving numbers have fallen far short of expectations.

Mao Chi-kuo noted that the mainland and Taiwan will conduct a second round of talks next month and expressed hope that the number of weekend flights can be increased from the current 18, along with an increase in flight destinations and routes.
Source: Yahoo News

Part of the National Library of North Korea

China will allow its travel agencies to organize tour groups to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) of North Korea as the Chinese government has decided to grant approved destination status to the neighboring country.

China’s National Tourism Administration (NTA) said group tours to the DPRK will start ‘at an appropriate time after the two countries negotiate details and sign official agreements.’ Which, in truth, sounds promising.

Deputy head of the NTA Du Jiang said when he met his DPRK counterpart during a visit to the country that  2009, the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-DPRK diplomatic relations, would be a good opportunity for both countries to enhance cooperation in tourism.

Deputy Director Kang Chul-soo of the DPRK National Tourism Administration said the DPRK considered China as an important tourist source and hoped China could offer assistance in such fields as tourism promotion and personnel training.

Air China, the leading Chinese carrier, launched direct service from Beijing to Pyongyang in March. It is the only foreign airline to offer scheduled flights to the DPRK capital.
Source: English People’s Daily Online

Chinese tourists in Germany

Leisure travelers account for 85% of all outbound trips. Chinese outbound departures more than doubled in the last five years, from 16.6 million in 2002 to 40.9 million in 2007.

New international agreements and loosening visa restrictions are making it easier than ever for Chinese citizens to travel abroad.

The 2007 Neilsen China Outbound Travel Monitor Report shows that Chinese travelers spend an average of $2,913 per trip per person.

Europe is the top destination for Chinese travelers, followed by Australia and New Zealand.

The number of Chinese leisure travelers to the United States has been very small. 397,000 Chinese tourists entered the U.S. in 2007, accounting for 0.7% of all inbound tourists.

Much more of this article by Yao Xu, a graduate of the the University of California at Irvine with a degree in English, HERE.
Source: China-USA Today

The French Foreign Ministry claims the official tourism body for the Chinese capital of Beijing has urged tour operators to stop selling holiday packages to France. That is probably debatable. What is not debatable is the strong reaction in China to the French and their dealing with the carrying of the Olympic flame.

Thousands of pro-Tibet protesters disrupted the relay of the Olympic flame through Paris last month, forcing the torch to be extinguished. And it is not arguable the French government could have done a lot more to control the situation.

Perhaps they thought China would not notice. They were wrong. Chinese nationalists subsequently called for a boycott of French goods.

The government in Paris had hoped that now tensions were easing and the tourism boycott caught officials by surprise.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told a regular news conference, ‘We have learnt that this recommendation was made by the tourism administration of Beijing. Our embassy in Beijing is currently taking steps with the Chinese authorities to find out the reasons that could have motivated it.’

If it happened it was because the efforts that were made by the French police to manage the run were, on the television footage available, pathetic.

While it is true the Olympic torch’s procession has also been disrupted in a number of other cities, most notably in London and San Francisco, the only place where it got out of control was France..

Some 700,000 tourists from mainland China visited France last year, according to Maison de la France, a tourism body. It was not clear how many of those came from Beijing.

Not helping is President Nicolas Sarkozy suggesting he will boycott the event unless China started talks with the Dalai Lama. As it happens the Chinese government has started such talks. Perhaps the best solution is for him not to come to the Olympics but just send along his wife — his third if one is counting — who is the pop singer Carla Bruni as seen in our illustration. Much more acceptable.
Source: Reuters

The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce today announced that starting on June 17, 2008, Chinese leisure travelers may travel to the United States in group tours.

CNTA Chairman Shao Qiwei will lead the inaugural Chinese tour group on June 17 to Washington, D.C.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez said: ‘This memorandum of understanding opens China’s growing market to U.S. travel and tourism industries. Now, more Chinese visitors can experience America’s hospitality, cultural diversity, and natural beauty.

Increased visitation from China will boost overall visitation to the United States, strengthen the relationship between our nations, and forge new friendships between our peoples.’

By 2020, China will become the world’s fourth largest source of tourists.

On average, Chinese citizens spend more during their stay than visitors from other countries. In 2006, average per visitor spending by Chinese citizens traveling to the United States was more than $6,000.
Source: Shanghai Daily

According to the Nielsen China Outbound Travel Monitor report Chinese travelers spend $2,597 to $3,506 on overseas trips, with the amount varying by region. That is serious money.

According to Neilsen, for those who hail from southern China, the average expenditure is at the bottom of the range, and only 10% opt for five-star hotels, compared with a national average of 12%.

But they travel more frequently than residents of other regions, averaging almost three trips a year, according to the survey that covered Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and 23 other cities.

People from other parts of China travel less often but are willing to spend more when they do.

Travelers from north China (including Beijing) spend the most, with an average of $3,506 per trip. More than 20% of travelers from eastern China (including Shanghai) choose five-star hotels.

Grace Pan, head of travel and leisure research at Nielsen said, ‘With the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the China outbound travel market is expanding.’
Source: China View

More Chinese tourists are expected to travel to overseas destinations such as Hong Kong with the appreciation of the RMB against the US dollar. For Chinese travelers, it means stronger purchasing power in the United States and other countries and regions that use US dollars or peg their currencies to it.

Since Chinese tour groups are still unable to organize trips to the US, it is destinations such as Hong Kong, with its currency pegged to the US dollar, that attract tourists from the Chinese mainland.

Guo Guang, manager with ctrip.com, an online travel service, said, ‘More people have called to inquire about our Hong Kong tour packages than usual.’

So far, the number of customers who purchased Hong Kong tour products from ctrip.com has increased by 70% year-on-year.

But outbound travel is not being seriously driven by the rise and rise of the renminbi. Dun Jidong, marketing director of the China Travel Service’s overseas tourism department, said, ‘The current yuan appreciation can only serve as an auxiliary factor to the booming outbound tourism market. If it is to prompt much more people to travel overseas, the appreciation has to be so significant that it leads to a huge drop in the price of outbound tour products.’
Source: China Daily

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