"The competition is rather fierce these days," he said. "In
the Shichahai area alone, 22 travel services are providing hutong tours."
In 2004, the most recent time that data is available, hutong tours
contributed four million yuan (500,000 U.S. dollars) of tourism income, said
Wang Shun, an official with the Xicheng District branch of Beijing Tourism
Bureau.
"This is not a big amount compared with Beijing's 3.62-billion-U.S.-dollar
foreign currency income in the tourism sector last year," said Wang. "But it's
an environment-friendly way to develop tourism and increase income for hutong
residents."
Local families who help host the tourists in Shichahai area reported an
average income rise of 10,000 yuan (1,250 U.S. dollars) last year, he said.
Many other Chinese cities have also opened their centuries-old residential
compounds to help foreigners learn more about the local people's lives and
facilitate their communication with the Chinese commoners in a more open
society.
This has added a new vitality to China's tourism industry, which has
witnessed fast growth over the past two and a half decades of reform and opening
up.
China has received 1.24 billion international tourists and earned 219 billion
U.S. dollars of foreign tourism revenue since 1978.
The National Tourism Administration says China received 120 million
international tourist arrivals last year. The number is expected to grow by
eight percent in the next five years and the country is likely to receive 137
million visitors by 2019 to become the world's biggest tourist destination.
The growth rate, however, is more significant in outbound tourism.
In 2005, the Chinese made 31 million trips overseas and the figure is
expected to grow by 10 percent this year.
The tourism administration refused to give a breakdown of how many Chinese
mainlanders actually traveled to a foreign country, but it did say that Asian
destinations, particularly Hong Kong and Macao, remained the top choices for
domestic travelers.
"I'll visit Hong Kong before I travel any further," said Li Jing, a
33-year-old civil servant in Beijing. "It won't take too long or cost too much,
and my three-year-old son will love the Disneyland."
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