Japan to be restored as China's biggest tourism source ( 2003-08-03 10:48) (Xinhua)
Experts from China and Japan gathered in Beijing
Saturday to express their common confidence of restoring Japan as China's
biggest tourism source nation and strengthening bilateral partnership.
Japan's largest travel agency JTB organized the conference to promote the
recovery of China's tourism, which has suffered due to severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS).
In order to create a safe, healthy and civilized environment for tourists in
Beijing, certain regulations were put in place in areas such as hotels, travel
agencies and restaurants, said Wen Ziji, deputy director of the Beijing Tourism
Bureau.
In recent years, the number of Japanese outbound tourists increased slowly,
but those to China grew steadily, reaching a historical peak in 2002. However,
from April to June this year, due to SARS, tourists to China decreased by more
than 90 percent over the same period of the previous year.
When the SARS threat diminished, business travel was restored quickly, but in
order to make tourism travel recover more rapidly, the two sides should put more
efforts into promotion, said Toshio Matsugu, member of the board of JTB.
Though the booming tourism exchanges between Japan and China faces severe
challenges, the Chinese government took a positive attitude toward the SARS and
achieved final success much earlier than experts predicted, said Akio Kambara,
standing member of the board of JTB.
He believed that tourism exchanges would continue to develop rapidly and in a
stable way.
Matsugu noted that people from both countries have learned from SARS, so
upcoming activities, such as 2004 Shanghai International Tourism Exposition, the
2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, will bring
bilateral tourism exchanges to a new height.
Since the beginning of this century, Japanese tourists have accounted for
about 20 percent of China's total inbound tourists. JTB alone sent approximately
300,000 visitors to China each year. Meanwhile, more and more Chinese people are
also choosing to travel to Japan.
