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 …

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 …

eLong will make a list each week of hotels whose price on eLong.com is higher than on Ctrip.com, and compensate users with cash when they book the hotels through eLong and check in, the report said. In an initial comparison, eLong found 90, or less than 1% of its more than 10,000 contracted hotels, offer higher prices on eLong than on Ctrip.com, said the report.
Ctrip.com announced that it had started a best price guarantee promotion for its hotel booking service a few days ago, offering compensation of three times the …

Kampala — Tourism will be marketed as Uganda’s major product at the China Shangai 2010 world exposition in May, the state minister for trade has said.
“Uganda is listed among countries where Chinese are authorised to visit,” said Gagawalla Wambuzi, state minister for trade. The Shangai expo in mainland China will attract 70 million visitors for five months upto October and it will present a great opportunity for Uganda to sell its rising tourism potential.
As part of the preparations for this expo, a group of Chinese journalist visited Uganda for 10 …

China International Travel Service, one of the few tourism enterprises among the “Top 500 Enterprises of China”, has established China International Travel Service Zhejiang Company. together with Zhejiang Paradise International Travel Service Company with a total investment of CNY10 million.
It is reported that Hangzhou currently has 461 travel agencies but only a few of those are of large scale and famous brands.
Xu Liang, the general manager and director of CITS Zhejiang and the former general manager of Zhejiang Paradise International Travel Service, told media that with the unique resources of …

Chinese online travel service provider Ctrip.com has announced that it will compensate consumers for any differences in online booking prices.
Ctrip.com said that, from March 10, 2010, all the room rates it provides on its website for hotels in China will be the lowest available. If any consumers find room rates lower than those on its website, it will pay them compensation to the value of three times the price difference.
This is the first time ever that a travel service provider in China has promised to compensate consumers for price …

ChinaTravelTrends.com, new interactive platform for China outbound tourism, launched in Berlin, with backing of PATA

Chinese affluent citizens increasingly like to travel abroad, but distrust official information.
With more than 50 million outbound travellers expected to leave China in 2010, the Chinese outbound market is attracting more and more attention of destinations around the world.
As part of the ITB Convention 2010, a workshop organised by the German-based COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute and the Chinese company Dragon Trail, presented Social Media Marketing as the most …

Ctrip.com International Ltd. (Nasdaq: CTRP | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) assures customers that they will get the lowest price for online booking of hotel rooms and promises compensation if they are cheated.
The promise is made in partnership with hotel chains at home and abroad, including …

China’s online travel booking users in 2009 reached 30.24 million, increasing 77.9 percent from the previous year, according to a report released recently by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
Ctrip, the one-stop China travel service, also says its number of members has reached 30 million.
Online travel booking in 2009 saw rapid development and has become a highlight of the tourism market. According to statistics released by the CNNIC, online travel booking users in 2009 increased 77.9 percent to reach 13.24 million. The growth rate is second only to online payment …

Online travel service provider Ctrip.com has announced it has reorganized its vacation department to a travel and vacation department to further exploit the Chinese travel and vacation market.
Guo Dongjie, the vice president of Ctrip.com, said that the recently-promulgated “View on Accelerating Development of Tourism Industry” has greatly improved the status of the tourism industry in China and it has pointed out the direction for the future development of tourism enterprises. As the leader in the Chinese online travel sector, Ctrip.com will focus more on mass tourism while maintaining its competitive …

Competition between operators in the U.S. is driving down prices

By Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver SunMarch 8, 2010There was much official fanfare when, after more than a decade of high-level wrangling, Canada got the nod for so-called approved destination status from China. That was a few months ago.
Now, while the actual bilateral agreement gets hammered out — line by arcane line, privately — B.C.-based tour operators are all a-chatter about how approved destination status (ADS) has played out in the U.S. and Australia, and what they would like to see in Canada’s …

According to the US Department of Commerce, a Chinese tourist spends an average of $6,000 USD in the United States. This enormous spending power of the Chinese tourist is the main reason behind the New York City Tourism Bureau to vigorously promote the visit of thousands of Chinese visitors; the largest group in NYC tourism history. According to the Tourism Bureau’s latest news, among the main activities of Chinese tourist, 95% are shopping, followed by dining. Business owners are all smiles upon the arrival of Chinese tourists.

Bloomingdales in NYC, a …

South Florida is starting to court the next big thing in tourism: visitors from China.
Broward and Palm Beach counties are working with state tourism agency Visit Florida to lure Chinese tourists, providing materials for travel trade shows in China and welcoming delegations of Chinese travel agents and press to help spread the word about what South Florida offers.
On a recent Friday, a group of eight Chinese travel writers visited Fort Lauderdale, taking a water taxi tour, shopping on Las Olas Boulevard, as well as sampling shrimp and steak at Shula’s …

Chinese tourists are seen at the Tokyo Disneyland on Feb 19. [Photo:China Daily]

The Chinese Lunar New Year is not only a gala for domestic retail sales, but a feast for overseas retailers, too.
Some 1,200 Chinese tourists celebrated the lunar New Year in New York between Feb 14 and 20, spending an estimated $6 million in the United States, said Zheng Wenqing, a public relations manager for New York Tourism Board’s China office.
Japanese retailers also reaped gains from Chinese tourists during the week. A local home appliance retailer, Bic Camera, reported …

Chinese online travel website company eLong Inc. reported its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2009.
Total revenues at eLong.com for the fourth quarter increased 18% year-on-year to CNY106.9 million and net revenues increased 18% year-on-year to CNY100.9 million. Operating income in the fourth quarter was CNY2.4 million compared to operating loss of CNY10.3 million in the prior year period. Net income in the fourth quarter was CNY1.0 million compared to net loss of CNY8.2 million in the prior year period.
Total revenues in 2009 …

China’s position in the tourism development in the world has been rising, the fourth largest entry receiving country in the world and the largest exit tourist source country in Asia. From 2000 to 2008, the total revenues of Chinese tourism increased by 12.5% annually (by CNY). In 2008, China totally received tourists about 1.89 billion man-time, rising by 5.9% of last year, realizing the tourism revenues of 1.16 trillion CNY ?166 billion USD?, increased by 5.8% of last year.
The slowdown of economy growth negatively affected the tourism, leading to the …

Preference Of Wealthy Mainland Tourists For Upscale Malls, Luxury Outlets Hits Department Stores Hard
Chinese luxury shoppers typically prefer upscale shopping malls to all-in-one department stores, as Shanghai’s Plaza 66 attests (Image via Flickr)

Last week, Jing Daily translated an article about Chinese tourists outspending Japanese 2-to-1 at a number of famous South Korean department stores. According to that article, visitors from mainland China now account for more sales than ever at some of Seoul’s most fashionable and expensive stores, and it’s not unknown for one-day tourists to drop hundreds of thousands …

The online video business in China is seeing explosive growth, as Chinese consumers learn how to capture and watch video and as Chinese advertisers seek to boost their branding. Several several emerging Chinese companies are scrambling to exploit it — so far, few U.S. companies are there.
Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine company, said today it has raised $50 million from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners to pump into Baidu’s new online video unit. The unit, a separate corporate entity called Qiyi, is licensing premium video content and running ads …