Top Biz News

Travel market set to fully open

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-05-19 08:44

Large Chinese travel services are confident they will be able to compete.

Yao Yuecan, president of the China International Travel Service Head Office, told China Daily the further opening-up "will not influence our business".

"The profit that travel agencies in China make is rather limited. It will not be easy for foreign-funded travel agencies to survive in China's market," he said.

To register a travel agency in China to operate domestic tours costs only 300,000 yuan ($39,000), and there are many small agencies that cut prices to compete against the State-owned agencies.

This sort of competition has restricted the development of large travel agencies.

Yao said he believes the entry of foreign investors might be able to curb the "unruly" competition, since foreign agencies might merge or take over the smaller local ones.

China joined the WTO in November 2001. It has fulfilled some WTO commitments regarding the tourism sector ahead of schedule or on time, including allowing foreign investors to hold major stakes in joint-venture agencies in 2003, and giving the go-ahead to establish solely foreign-funded travel agencies in December 2005.

(China Daily 05/19/2007 page1)