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Trying times cast tourism turnaround

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-17 12:45

Visitors play with windbells at a tourist spot in Lijiang, Yunnan province, last year. The popular travel destination has seen a recent drop in tourist arrivals. [China Daily]

Summer has arrived in Lijiang of Yunnan province and with it expectations of the annual peak tourist season in the popular travel destination.

But tour agent Niu Zhenlin has felt only the chill of empty streets in the city, as if the unusually heavy snowfall that hit the area in the beginning of the year has yet to thaw.

"This time last year, the famous bar street in the old town of Lijiang was so crowded you could hardly walk through it in the evening," Niu said.

"If you want to see the real Lijiang, and not the usual swarm of tourists, now is the time," he said.

The obvious plunge in tourist arrivals in Lijiang has directly impacted those like Niu, who make a living from such visitors.

As a manager of a small outdoor travel agency in Lijiang, Niu said he has received only two tour groups in the past week, compared with at least four groups a day for last year.

Even his company's most popular package - a hiking route along the Yulong Snow Mountain - has attracted just 45 customers last month, one-third of the 150 tourists from home and abroad last June, he said.

"It is unimaginable," Niu said. "This time last year, we did not even have enough time to sleep.

"But now, I have to ask my tour guides to take their holidays."

Niu himself has made plans to travel, something he could not afford in the past few years with his heavy workload.

"I will go into the wilderness to search for new routes for our outdoor trekking tours," he said.

To be sure, business in the past few years has been a breeze for people like Niu, whose wallets have swelled in line with the increasing popularity of Lijiang, since its inclusion on the World Heritage List in 1997.

Millions of tourists have flown thousands of miles to the southwestern corner of China each year - to catch a glimpse of its ingenious network of ancient waterways, quaint cobbled streets, and the fusion of various cultural traditions.

In 2000, more than 2.58 million tourists visited the town, helping the service industry contribute half of the local gross domestic product that year. The number jumped to 3.6 million in 2004, and exceeded 4 million in 2005.

In the past several years, Lijiang has been on the list of the country's most popular tourist destinations.

Niu, taking advantage of his identity as a native resident of the Naxi ethnic group, started out as an outdoor hiking guide in 1999.

During periods when the agency did not have enough guides to satiate the crowds of tourists, Niu himself would take the visitors to experience Naxi ethnic culture.

He had expected this year, with Beijing's hosting of the Olympic Games, to give a big boost to his business, if not maintain its turnover.

"Who could have guessed it would be so difficult this year?"

Many believe the rare blizzards that covered southern regions in winter, the deadly quake that hit Sichuan province on May 12 and the floods that subsequently struck parts of the country, have all cast a psychological shadow on the minds of domestic tourists and given them second thoughts about traveling.

"When the Sichuan earthquake struck, many people just lost the interest to travel," said Zhang Lingjie, deputy general manager of the domestic tourism department with China International Travel Service.

The inbound arrivals have also dropped significantly, due to a tightened visa policy in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

The two factors have combined to hit China's tourism industry, including business at scenic spots, travel services, airlines and hotels.

Guizhou, for example, reported a significant drop in inbound arrivals, at 30 to 40 percent, said Zhou Xiaofeng from the marketing division of the Guizhou tourism bureau.

"As far as I know, no major scenic spots in the country have received more tourists after the quake than the same period last year," Zhang said.

The promotion of local tourism by high-level officials is said to reflect the urgency to restore confidence for domestic travel.

The campaigns have also reportedly won the support of senior government officials.

In Beijing, four travel promotions hosted by Hainan and Sichuan provinces, Lhasa and Hangzhou, have been staged in the past month.

"Usually, a region's annual tourism campaign would have ended by June," said Zhou Xiaofeng from Guizhou tourism bureau.

But the slack market has made everything different.

"Guizhou will continue the travel promotions till October this year, and add Shandong, Northeast China and Chongqing municipality into the target market list as well," Zhou said.

"Usually, we won't promote our activities in a mature market like Chongqing," Zhou said.

Guizhou, abundant in tourism resources, is striving to realize a seemingly impossible goal of 25 percent growth in the travel industry, he said.

"The budget for marketing will surely exceed what was originally planned, but it's worthwhile because it is imperative for us to restore people's confidence in traveling," he said.

Airlines and hotels are already seen to be offering unprecedented low prices to travel agencies.

"Airlines now offer us a discount of 80 percent on air fare. Last year, if we could get a 30 percent discount during a peak season like July, we would feel very lucky," Zhang Lingjie from CITS said.

Options that used to be closed to domestic tourists also became available to them this summer, he said.

The luxurious cruise boats that used to take foreign visitors on tours of the Three Gorges Dam were opened to domestic tourists this year, at a cheaper price, Zhang said.

Considering all these factors, the cost of domestic travel is at "the lowest point in a decade", he said.