SANYA, Hainan, March 20 (Xinhua) — A senior official with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said here Saturday that China was expected to contribute a lot to global tourism recovery in 2010.
Taleb Rifai, the secretary general of the UNWTO, said global tourism experienced the most difficult year in 2009 with the global tourism revenue dropped by 4 percent.
The UNWTO forecast the global tourism revenue in 2010 was expected to grow by 2-3 percent and China would contribute a lot to the growth, he said.
He made the remarks at …

When stepping into Toronto’s downtown Chinatown, Chinese tourists may enjoy a familiar air there, and they may even find themselves treated like VIPs by small business owners, tour guides, and vendors there.
All these, as experts have pointed, should be attributed to a decision by China’s government to grant Approved Destination Status (ADS) to Canada at the end of last year. .
“Certainly, I hope more and more Chinese tourists can come to my store and buy stuff here,” said Benny Ho, the owner of B & J Trading told Xinhua. As …

CTT: Here is an interesting view re the China Google issue from China Daily – also have a look at the comments. In any case – China’s Internet users keep on growing (now close to 400 million), and China is continuing to block sites, such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter…and soon (by April 10) also Google (?).
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Google’s actions show that the world’s biggest search engine company has abandoned its business principles and instead shows the world a face that is totally politicized.
First, it claims without any evidence that …

Nation biggest market in Asia; 100 million people forecast to travel

BEIJING: More mainland tourists are expected to spend money on overseas travel this year, said a report by a think tank to the national tourism authority.
The Annual Report of China Outbound Tourism Development 2009-2010, released by the China Tourism Academy on Thursday, estimated that 54 million tourists would go abroad this year, up from 47 million in 2009.
They are expected to spend 48 billion yuan ($6.86 billion) overseas, up 14 percent from a year earlier, the report said.
“The outbound travel …

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has declared 2011 as the” Year for visiting Sri Lanka”.

China’s Spring Festival

The Sri Lanka Embassy in Beijing together with the Consulates in Shanghai and Chengdu have enlisted the support of the Tourism Promotion Bureau in Colombo and the in/outbound tour operators to launch promotion campaigns to attract even a small percentage of the vast outbound tourism market in China.
China National Tourism Agency expects 51 million Chinese travellers to go overseas during the year 2011. With the defeat of LTTE terrorism …