Tourism officials from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Shenzhen held several rounds of discussions over the weekend calling for a fast and healthy recovery of the tourism industry in the Pearl River Delta region.

"The trial policy of allowing easy access to Hong Kong, which will be operational in four cities in Guangdong from July 28, will open up a huge potential in the tourism market, attracting more local residents to travel to Hong Kong,'' said Stephen Shu-Kwan, Secretary for Economic Services of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region.

Zhongshan, Dongguan, Foshan and Jiangmen have a total population of 10 million, and one-tenth of these have shown an interest in travelling to Hong Kong, according to a survey conducted by the Guangdong Provincial Tourism Administration.

Some 6.82 million mainland tourists travelled to Hong Kong last year, with people from Guangdong accounting for 42 per cent.

"Travellers in Hong Kong from Guangdong will leave a deep impression on both local and foreign people there, who are also potential travellers to Guangdong,'' said Zheng Tongyang, provincial tourism administration chairman.

In addition to this, five agreements were signed between Guangdong and East China's Shandong and Jiangxi, Central China's Hunan, and South China's Hainan province respectively last Tuesday.

"Guangdong can be developed as the centre, deepening mutual support with the neighbouring regions to help kick-start the currently stagnant tourism market,'' said Zheng.

Generous help from Shandong when Guangdong was implementing its "Dynamic Guangdong, Sunny Activities'' promotional scheme impressed the director very deeply during the peak of the SARS outbreak in April.

"Those hard days tested our faith,'' said the director, who will try in the following months to help Shandong and other provinces to bounce back.

Driving north through nine provinces, the administration in April held the grand event to ward off the threat of SARS.

Sharing tourism customers and local scenic resources are the main themes of the plan.

According to Zheng, Shaoguan in north Guangdong, Chenzhou in Hunan and parts of Jiangxi are drawing up plans to develop a golden tourism delta region.

Meizhou, in northeast Guangdong, together with Jiangxi and Fujian in Southeast China are planning the birth of a Hakka Culture Circle.

A Qiongzhou Straits tourism circle is also called for, which is now the subject of heated discussion between Guangdong and Hainan.

Overseas Chinese Town, a famous tourism company in Shenzhen, is now in Tai'an city, Shandong Province, developing local tourism resources with its advanced management.

Every place has its unique tourism resources, like tourists from Hong Kong being reliable customers in Guangdong, Zheng said it is his duty to introduce more Hong Kong tourism officials to the four other provinces in the following months.

Close

Today's Top News		Top Business News
+The next great leap after Shenzhou V ( 2003-10-21) +Hu calls for balanced development ( 2003-10-21) +Report: SARS not airborne virus ( 2003-10-21) +Japan urged to resolve weapons issue ( 2003-10-21) +Int'l AIDS group opens Beijing office ( 2003-10-21)		+Home-appliance giants want wheels ( 2003-10-21) +Exchange-rate reform under study ( 2003-10-21) +Health insurance sector called for ( 2003-10-21) +SanDisk teams up to open outlets ( 2003-10-21) +Housing prices start to sag in Shanghai ( 2003-10-21)