As spring nears, some of the world's popular tourism destinations
have been promoting themselves in China, in the hope of attracting
more Chinese tourists and setting up closer ties with China's
tourism circle.
Nearly 20 tourism companies from northern Europe were in Beijing as
the 2003 tourism season nears. Denmark, Norway and Sweden promoted
their beautiful scenery and way of living.
"Chinese people are familiar with Andersen's fairy tales, the Nobel
prize, Ericsson and Nokia mobiles," said Ole Lonsmann Poulsen, the
Danish ambassador to China. "I hope one day they can visit the
Danish seaside, Norwegian mountains and Swedish forest."
The north European countries have not yet gained the authorized
destination status (ADS) to make it easier for Chinese tourists to
visit, but this did not stop their promotions in China.
Almost at the same time as these European promotions, a man named
Amran took office as a tourism official for Malaysia, a country
also wanting to attract more tourists.
Malaysia will offer Chinese tourists tropical scenery, tasty fruit
and a thriving rain forest with a long history, said Majid Bin
Khan, Malaysian ambassador to China.
Since Malaysia gained ADS status, millions of Chinese tourists have
visited the country, including tourists and business people. Over
550,000 Chinese people visited last year alone, up 23 percent
compared with the previous year, making China the southeast Asian
nation's fourth largest tourism source for Malaysia.
Swiss tourism operators came on their sixth trip to China. Composed
of 21 institutions from Switzerland, they planned to launch
workshops in six cities within one week.
In
2002, Chinese people spent nearly 120,000 overnight stays in
Switzerland, up 25 percent over the previous year, said Federico
Sommaruga, director of Southeast Asia and Australia for Switzerland
Tourism.
Sommaruga said Switzerland was the first European nation to apply
for ADS and the first European nation to open an office in
China.
He
said he believed that as China quickened its pace of opening up,
Chinese tourists could conveniently visit the beautiful and rich
European nation soon.
This was an especially busy spring season with various nations
promoting among Chinese cities to get a piece of China's prosperous
outbound tourism.
(People's Daily March 7, 2003)