Foreign Travel Agents Allowed Bringing Chinese Clients Overseas

According to the World Tourism Organization, China is the fourth largest country regarding the purchasing power of its tourists. Now, with local shopkeepers and fancy department stores, foreign travel agents are expected to gain more from their Chinese clients as the country expands its overseas tourism market.

As Lance Crayon tells us, despite fierce competition, some insiders believe the opening market will benefit this country's tourism industry and domestic companies in the long run.

55-year-old Mrs. Wang has just come back from a trip to Japan to make her retirement days more enjoyable. She suddenly finds out she can now choose a Japanese travel agent.

"Now I can choose both home and foreign agents, which certainly will give me more options with more reasonable prices and better experiences. Like in Japan, local companies surely know much more special places like those cute hot spring B&Bs."

In fact, all top ten travel agencies in the US, Japan and Europe have entered the market in China, but in the past they were only allowed to do business on Chinese soil and had to shelve their real strengths like easier access to applying for visas and more native route designs.

Kintetsu International Express, the second largest Japanese travel agency, came to China in 1984. Its president, Goke Susumu, says they have looked forward to the opening of overseas travel for a long time.

"Travel agents like us highly welcome this new policy, with a more open market which can give us more opportunities. We hope it can come into effect soon."

Dai Bing, vice director of the China Tourism Academy, admits there will be competition among domestic agents, but he also says it will spur the country's tourism economy.

"It could be too much for some travel agents with a relatively traditional business model. So we hope those companies can do more market research beforehand. We know only better service can keep the industry growing."

Right now, Chinese travelers are allowed to visit 140 countries. The number of overseas tourists reached some 26 million in the first half of 2010, and is expected to hit 53 million by the end of the year.

For CRI, I'm Lance Crayon .