REGIONAL> Culture Tourism
Fujian Tourism Up
By Hu Meidong and Liu Xintian (China Daily Fujian Bureau)
Updated: 2009-07-20 18:08

Tourism is down overall in China this year, but not in the country's Fujian province, which made 52.8 billion RMB from tourism, an increase of 7 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Strait News.

The paper also reported that in the first half of this year, 45.262 million people visited Fujian from the rest of China alone, a 9.5 percent increase on the year before. They spent 44.601 billion RMB, which was a 7.4 percent increase from the previous year. International tourism also increased, though not as much: 1.3917 million tourists visited from overseas, spending about 1.16 billion US dollars total – 0.3 percent and 2.2 percent increases on last year's numbers, respectively.

The head of the Fujian tourism Bureau said one key reason for the continued growth of Fujian's tourism industry was the development of direct flights and other links between Fujian and Taiwan. Indeed, the Strait News reported that the number of Taiwanese tourists visiting Fujian increased by 20.7 percent from last year, to 413 thousand people. In addition, he said, a heavy advertising and promotion effort in the United States and Europe helped increase the number of tourists arriving in Xiamen, a major city in southern Fujian, by cruise ship to 8,969 – a figure ten times higher than last year's.