Tourism & Transporation

Tourism

China has become one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations since its relations with the West improved during the 1970s. In 2006, 11.3 million foreign tourists entered mainland China, representing 51% of the total foreign visitors to the country for that year. Mainland China also received over 100 million visits from residents of Hong Kong and Macao during 2006.

International revenues from tourism have been increasing at annual double-digit rates for almost 30 years. (The one notable exception was 2003, when the SARS epidemic curtailed much of the travel to and from China.) In 2006, China received USD 33.6 billion from international tourism, ranking sixth in the world and making tourism China’s largest services trade area. By 2007, the tourism industry brought in USD 42 billion, while China’s draw made it the fourth largest tourist destination, falling only behind France, Spain and the U.S.

Transportation

Since the 1980s, China has significantly expanded its transportation network, building thousands of miles of new roads and railways. One of the major goals has been to better integrate western areas of the country, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, into the transportation framework in order to speed regional development.  (In 2006, China finished construction of a high-elevation railway linking the Tibetan city of Lhasa with Qinghai Province, and ultimately, Beijing.) Additionally, increasing wealth has created a surge in automobile ownership, necessitating an improved road system within and between cities. As China has created new inland export processing zones, the need for enhanced rail and road service between these zones and coastal ports has become increasingly critical. In recent years, one such zone in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, was linked by rail to the port facilities in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.

China has also co-developed with Germany the world’s first and only high-speed commercial magnetic levitation (maglev) train service, which operates in Shanghai. The train currently runs from the Shanghai airport to downtown. The government planned to extend the line to Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, but this project was recently suspended due to concerns that residents living near the track would be exposed to unsafe levels of radiation. In the northeast region of the country, China is developing a short maglev line in the city of Dalian using Chinese-developed maglev technology.China has also built or expanded metro subway and train systems in several of its major cities. In 1969, Beijing became the first Chinese city to open an urban subway system.

After the initiation of economic reforms, plans for additional metro transportation systems were quickly implemented and put into construction. Shanghai (1995), Guangzhou (1999), Shenzhen (2004), and Wuhan (2004) have all had systems built within the last 15 years. Tianjin has recently rebuilt and extended its main subway system and has partially completed a new light-rail line to its coastal Economic-Technological Development Area. Construction is also ongoing for mass transportation systems in Nanjing and Chongqing, and other systems are planned for Chengdu and Qingdao.

Most recently, China further expanded its transportation services in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. Newly added routes include a high-speed rail link from Beijing to Tianjin, and several subway lines linking major venues and transportation hubs throughout the Chinese capital.

As a result of a wave of consolidations and buyouts, China has three major airlines, all government-owned: Air China (operating out of Beijing), China Eastern Airlines (Shanghai), and China Southern Airlines (Guangzhou; 10 regional hubs in southern and central China). Six smaller Chinese airlines, some privately held, operate primarily domestic routes. The largest of these is Hainan Airlines, a privately owned airline operating out of southern China.