Image Building Helps Guilin Boost Flow of Tourists
Guilin now allows three-day visa-free stays for visitors from 51 countries, in a move that, together with other tourist-attracting measures, is boosting its tourism industry.
Since July 2014, visitors from countries including Argentina, Germany, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States have been allowed to visit the city in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region visa-free for 72 hours if they have valid visas and onward flight tickets to a third country.
The city, known for the beauty of the scenery along the Lijiang River, also introduced a policy in May that allows tour groups from the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines - to stay in the city for six days without visas.
Tourism experts say that such moves, together with other measures, will attract more visitors to the southwestern city.
To facilitate the growth of its tourism industry, Guilin has been improving its infrastructure and hosting an annual international tourism forum to promote its image among foreign diplomats and visitors.
Guilin Liangjiang International Airport already has flights to 46 cities in China and overseas and the local government is investing more than 3 billion yuan ($462.6 million) to expand the airport and its supporting facilities, which will also allow it to handle Airbus A380 airplanes.
That will make the airport the only one in Guangxi able to receive the large aircraft. When the airport's new terminal is finished in 2017, it will be able to handle 12 million passengers annually.
The local transport authority also made an investment of 7.99 billion yuan in 2014 to improve infrastructure such as expressways and bus stations and river ports, a 29 percent increase on the previous year.
The city, which was listed among China's top 10 tourist destinations in 2014, also hosts an annual international tourism forum to promote its image among foreign diplomats and industrial professionals.
The UNWTO/PATA Forum on Tourism Trends and Outlook, held from Oct 19 to 21 this year, attracted tourism officials, scholars and entrepreneurs from 55 countries and regions, according to the organizers.
Wu Wenxue, deputy head of the China National Tourism Administration, said Guilin has benefitted from the forum as it has helped it gain a better understanding of the tourism industry worldwide.
Zhao Leqin, Party secretary of Guilin, said he hoped the participating diplomats would help popularize Guilin as a tourist destination in their countries.
Participants in the forum have been impressed by Guilin's scenery.
In 2009, Taleb Rifai attended the forum as secretary-general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, one of the forum's organizers, and when he cruised along the Lijiang River, he said that everyone should visit Guilin at least once in their lifetime.
Dimitrios Lianos, deputy mayor of Naxos in Greece, said China's new visa-free stay policy is good for Greek visitors and means there is much room for cooperation between the two cities.
The forum, organized by the UNWTO, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the Guilin city government and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was bunched in 2007 and Guilin became the permanent host city in 2009.
The UNWTO said Guilin is the right choice for the forum as China has become one of the world's largest tourist destinations and Guilin has become a weathervane for the development of China's tourism industry.
From January to August, Guilin received 28.26 million visitors, a 9.15 percent increase year-on-year, with overseas visitors numbering 1.47 million.
Tourism generated 31.48 billion yuan in the first eight months of the year for the city, a 20.44 jump from the same period previous year. Of this, overseas visitors contributed 4.47 billion yuan, a 17.28 percent rise year-on-year.
