South China's Guangdong province is to resume nationwide transport links, which were halted due to SARS, on Jul. 1, the provincial Tourism Bureau has announced.
Charter flights and special trains will also resume in early July. Thirteen cities in Guangdong will hold large-scale activities in open air to give travel advice and promote tourism in the province.
The Guangdong Tourism Bureau is keeping close contact with travel institutions in other places of China in order to ensure the health of tourist groups. The first areas open to Guangdong people are neighboring regions, including the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces.
On Jul. 4, the first tourist train from Guangzhou since the SARS outbreak will leave for Jinggangshan City, dubbed the cradle of the Chinese revolution, in Jiangxi. On Jul. 12, Guangzhou will start its first special train to the Three Gorges area on the upper Yangtze.
Travel agencies in Guangdong predict that tourism will revive rapidly in July and August as enthusiasm strengthens in the peak summer period. A travel agency in Guangzhou saw a packed registration on its first day of advertising a four-day tour of Zhangjiajie in Hunan at the price of 999 yuan (US$121).
Since Apr. 2, when the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a travel warning against Guangdong because of SARS, most of the province's travel services have gone out of business, generating significant losses for the industry. On May 23, the WHO lifted the travel warning against Guangdong.
About two thirds of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China have resumed travel in the local area to date, said Sun Gang, deputy director of the China National Tourism Administration.
(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2003)
