Lots of good news, and a little bad, for tourism

A tourist tastes droplets of rice wine stored in a bamboo tube in a Yao ethnic county in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region last February. [Photo/Xinhua]

A raft of good news about Chinese tourism was clouded only a little by figures showing a slight decline in visitors coming from outside to see the ancient country.

On the upside, Chinese tourists showed their enthusiasm for travel abroad in 2013 with more than 98.19 million visits, a whopping 18 percent increase over 2012.

Domestic tourism also remained robust, reaching 3.262 billion visits, a year-on-year increase of 10.3 percent, with total income soaring to 2.6276 trillion yuan ($434 billion), up 15.7 percent year-on-year, figures from the China National Tourism Administration showed.

But inbound tourism was not so rosy. A slight drop of 2.5 percent from 2012 was seen in the number of visitors coming to China from other countries. Even so, 129 million visits were made to the country, according to the administration.

The number of inbound tourists who stayed overnight declined by 3.5 percent year-on-year, with some 55.69 million visits, it said.

"The decrease was partly caused by the weak global economy and the increasing cost of travel in China," said Wu Wenxue, deputy head of the administration, during a news conference on Friday.

"Countries across the globe witnessed a decreasing proportion of outbound tourism, which also contributed to the drop."

However, the foreign exchange earnings from tourism last year soared to $51.7 billion, an increase of 3.3 percent.

Shao Qiwei, director of the administration, said during an earlier conference that China plans to allow foreign-funded travel agencies to operate outbound trips for Chinese citizens in 2014.

Enthusiasm for tourism from the major inbound tourist-generating countries and regions declined - including from Japan and South Korea - which has dealt a major blow to the China's inbound tourism market, Wu said.

Yang Xiufang, from an agency based in Beijing that mainly receives tourists from Japan, said the decline in Japanese tourists has been going on for two years and that 2013 witnessed the worst drop of passenger volume to date.