The city of Shanghai will publish the results of an annual survey on tourism service for the first time this year.

More than 10,000 locals took part in the survey this year.

The local tourism business watchdog uses the survey to improve business credibility.

"Results will be open to everyone from this year so as to regulate the city's tourism business field," said Jiang Shudong, survey vice-director at the Shanghai Customer Evaluation Center.

The survey suggests tourists' satisfaction rate was similar last year to the two previous years.

Service categories include hotel reservations, guides, tickets, route selection, shopping, dining, and transport.

For domestic tours, around 80.5 percent of customers were pleased by the service. And for international tours, 77.7 percent said they were satisfied.

Accommodation was graded as the least satisfactory among domestic tours; and for the international tours, guide, shopping and dining were the biggest concerns.

In addition, travel agencies and their services were also graded. Problems on travel insurance sales and agency kick-backs were mentioned by many respondents.

"The agencies can't force customers to buy travel insurance," said Su Guangjian, director of the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administrative Commission.

(Shanghai Daily March 14, 2006)