Brazilian and Chinese visitors led a resurgence in foreign tourism spending within the U.S. in the first half of the year, giving hope to domestic hoteliers, airline companies and others that the travel-spending slump of 2008 and 2009 is over, according to a report released Wednesday.
Foreign tourists spent about 20% more here during the first six months of 2010 than they did a year earlier, Visa (V) reported. American citizens also boosted their spending abroad, increasing travel purchases on their Visa cards by 9.3% compared to the same period in …

China’s outbound tourism will survive the coming economic downturn in China, because Chinese are not travelling for indiviual pleasure.

More and more countries have been trying to attract tourists from China. Vietnam has taken steps to lure more travelers from its northern neighbor. According to the Chinese Outbound Tourism Research Institute, in 2008, Chinese people made 46 million trips abroad, 90 percent of which were trips to Asia. China has become the biggest source of tourists in Asia, which explains why popular tourist destinations in Asia have launched numerous campaigns to attract tourists from China.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the number of Chinese …

China-USA air travel veteran on the state of outbound travel
China TravelDaily by Maggie Rauch
As a growing number of Chinese travel abroad for business and leisure, competition to lure mainland travelers is also heating up. One of the people responsible for steering mainland travelers to the United States, and one of the most experienced aviation professionals working in China today, is Delta Airlines’ Director & Chief Representative of China & Hong Kong, Sandeep Bahl. Bahl has worked in aviation for more than two decades, and has been stationed in either Japan …

More and more stores and cash machines in Japan are featuring signs that read “Union Pay.” That is the name of a debit card used in China and informs Chinese tourists that they can shop anywhere in Japan using that piece of plastic. The number of stores accepting Union Pay cards in Japan rose from just 250 in 2005 to almost 20,000 this year. Chinese tourists are big spenders and Japanese travel agencies have hired Chinese students to help them guide the travelers to shopping districts, while department stores in …

The number of Japanese entry visas issued to Chinese tourists has jumped 6.6-fold this month year-on-year after Tokyo eased entry requirements to attract more Chinese visitors, the Asahi Shimbun said Thursday.
Japan National Tourism Organization said a daily average of 378 tourist visas were issued to Chinese July 8-23, up from 57 over the same period last year.
On July 1, Japan relaxed visa rules by cutting the salary requirement to 60,000 yuan (8,848 U.S. dollars) or more per year for a Chinese to be eligible for a tourist visa, a significant …

The Hong Kong Tourism Board has reported that the number of tourist arrivals in the SAR hit a record 16.86 million in the first half of 2010 — up 23.1% from the previous year.
The report adds that June, a total of 2.62 million tourists visited Hong Kong, up 43.5% year on year.
The tourism board also points out that the Chinese mainland has become a major source of tourists. In the first six months, 10.48 million mainland tourists visited Hong Kong — 26.9% more than in the same period of last …

Chinese holiday makers will be allowed to travel to Canada on tourist visas from August 15th.
Tours to the north American country, famous for its picturesque “maple trees”, will charge around 30-thousand yuan per tourist. But the hefty cost isn’t cooling enthusiasm. Travel agents have more than a hundred tourists booked for the inaugural group tour.

South Korea will drastically ease visa restrictions for Chinese visitors who are becoming the major customers of its tourism market, the justice ministry said Tuesday.
From August 1 multiple-entry visas will be issued to employees of China’s top 500 companies, schoolteachers, pensioners, holders of various professional licences and graduates of prestigious colleges, it said.
The multiple-entry visa would allow them to enter South Korea freely for up to three years, the ministry said.
Currently it is offered only to people from advanced countries, owners of platinum or gold-class credit cards and professionals like …

When 25-year-old He Fan watched Disney’s Finding Nemo she was captivated by the wondrous sights beneath the waves.
The English language teacher from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region – the world’s most landlocked city – had only ever experienced 30 minutes of snorkeling before, albeit off the tropical paradise Indonesian island of Bali.
However, fuelled by those two experiences and a curiosity about marine life that she has nurtured since childhood, He splashed out on professional diving instruction and gained a globally recognized certificate of competence, despite knowing she …

In Italy, most cities still lack a direct flight to the island of Sardinia, the second-largest and arguably most breathtaking island in the Mediterranean. It’s a convenience the residents of Shanghai, however, might have shortly.
The island, with its turquoise waters, white-sand beaches and purple-flowered fields, has been chosen by China’s financial capital as the preeminent “exotic honeymoon paradise” for couples.
A massive promotional campaign aimed at boosting Chinese tourism on the island has been jointly launched by Shanghai’s municipality and Sardinia’s authorities.
“China is a growing market,” said Giorgio Macioccu, head of …

Just a year ago, Chinese travelers could not do much online except conduct research. Buying travel was almost exclusively an offline activity. But that’s all changing quickly.
A growing number of the 404-million Internet users on the Chinese mainland are now making travel purchases online. And that growth will accelerate in the coming years, according to iResearch, which will lead to a strong surge in Internet outlets.
“And iResearch estimates that revenue from the online travel service market will more than triple between 2009 and 2013,” the company says.
The number of China’s …

Dear Tour Operator/Travel Agent,
A new EU Visa Code took effect on 5th April 2010 with the aim of harmonising and simplifying Schengen visa applications. To monitor its implementation, European Tour Operators Association is conducting a survey; they would also like to hear your experiences of visa processing for the UK and Ireland. which are not affected by this new code.
If you work with any of the origin markets affected, please complete this survey by clicking  http://www.consumerdatasurveys.com/etoa/

European Tour Operators Association would be very grateful if you could forward it to any …

Lin Cheng-ming runs a small souvenir shop in Hengchuen Town on the southernmost tip of Taiwan. This year, he began to accept the Renminbi, the mainland’s currency, from his customers.
Although the Renminbi and the New Taiwan dollar cannot be directly exchanged, Lin wanted to make mainland tourists feel comfortable.
“We also began accepting (the mainland-based) UnionPay cards late last year,” Lin said.
A group of mainland tourists arrived in Taiwan in July 2008. They were the first mainland tourists to visit Taiwan since the two sides split amid civil war 59 years …

Global market research firm Synovate announced the launch of Media Atlas China, a new syndicated media study of 68,000 consumers across 66 cities and rural areas in mainland China. This is the most comprehensive syndicated study conducted in China to date, providing in-depth knowledge and understanding on the lifestyle, spending, and media habits of today’s Chinese.
Says Steve Garton, Executive Director of Media at Synovate: “Chinese consumers and Chinese brands represent the new world order. The media ecosystem in China is complex and unique: marketers across the world who want to …

The Visa and Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Asia Pacific Travel Intentions Survey 2010 has found mainland Chinese travelers plan to travel most out of all Greater China travelers.
The Survey, which was conducted in May 2010 and interviewed 1,571 people in the Greater China region, found that on average, mainland Chinese travelers are planning for 7.4 business and leisure trips in the next two years, compared with the 5.6 and 4.5 trips anticipated by Hong Kong and Taiwanese travelers.
The results also show that Greater China travelers are less affected by …

The fall of the euro against the yuan has prompted more Chinese to travel to European countries, as they look to pick up luxury brands on the cheap.
Li Yaoyi, resident of Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, has just finished a fruitful trip. “A 1,000-euro purse now costs about 8,000 yuan, which is about 1,400 yuan cheaper according to the converted
price paid for the commodity in the same period last year.”
Louis Vuitton, Omega and some other luxury brands now cost less in Europe than in Hong Kong or Macao, …

MANDARIN translations on our street signs could lead to thousands more Chinese holiday-makers finding their way to the sun, sand and surf of the Gold Coast.
Gold Coast City councillor Peter Young flagged the concept that Mandarin versions of key places could sit alongside the English names as a way to welcome more high-end tourists and investment into the city from China.
It would not be the first time the Gold Coast has signalled its status as a multi-lingual location — shops and directional signs commonly bore Japanese throughout the city in …

One day this January, I was standing at the entrance of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and was happy to find there was an audio guide in Chinese  available. It was an exciting sign that the increasing number of Chinese tourists had caught the attention of the curators, and that their needs were starting to be seriously taken into consideration.
With so many Chinese tourists eagerly flooding into the outside world, China can’t remain a mysterious country in the Far East.
A recent report in the Financial Times says Chinese tourists’ “overnight” …

Standard Chartered Bank and China Unionpay (CUP) have announced an ATM alliance through which Standard Chartered’s global ATM network will provide ATM services to CUP cardholders in 20 countries and territories.
It is also a remarkable achievement for CUP’s internationalisation. The cooperation will provide payment convenience to CUP cardholders for their travel, business and study in Africa, Middle East and Asia.
Before 2009 CUP cardholders could withdraw cash and check account balance at SCB ATMs only in China and Hong Kong. Now these services have been extended to SCB ATMs in Kenya, …