Chinese tourists

China has long had high hopes for international tourism in Hainan. In 2009, plans to transform the tropical island province into a desirable overseas destination by 2020 were announced. “But 2020 has arrived and failure to fulfill the island’s potential has not been for want of Beijing’s support,” reported the South China Morning Post in October. Not that Hainan has lacked in visitors. According to the Chinese tabloid the Global Times, “More than 83 million tourists from home and abroad visited southern China’s tropical island province of Hainan in 2019, up 9% year on year.” Tourism revenue also increased, rising 11% to US$16.2 billion, although noticeably absent from the article was the br

Glass bridges have mushroomed across China in recent years, offering adventurous travelers an adrenaline rush as the country tried novel ways of boosting tourism. But after a series of accidents, the northern Chinese province of Hebei has officially shut down all 32 of its glass walkways and bridges for safety checks, according to the Beijing News. The attractions had been suspended since March 2018. At least four other Chinese provinces also closed its glass bridges and ordered safety checks. The country has about 2,300 major attractions, particularly bridges, built from glass. The trend peak in 2016, when China opened what was then the world’s longest and highest glass bridge in the sout

Hong Kong Disneyland turned into a virtual ghost town on some days this summer as tourists have stayed away to avoid the city’s continuing pro-democracy protests. Visitors have reported stunning scenes of emptiness at the theme park, which is usually packed with foreign visitors and locals alike. Almost two-thirds of the seats at the park’s food courts and restaurants were empty during lunchtime on Thursday. Several shops were closed. People had to line up for only a few popular attractions, with many having no wait time at all. Hong Kong’s tourism industry has suffered the worst downturn in more than a decade amid an increasingly confrontational protest movement calling for accountability

Hong Kong’s tourism industry is paying the price for three months of anti-government protests calling for political reforms.  With fewer tourists traveling to Hong Kong, many hotel workers have had to take paid or unpaid leave due to a drop in occupancy rates.  For example, the 492-room Mira Hong Kong, situated in the bustling tourist district of Tsim Sha Tsui, has put scores of housekeeping staff for an unwanted break, the South China Morning Post has learned.  A few streets away, the luxury waterfront InterContinental Hong Kong hotel has asked staff to take annual leave and unpaid leave to save money. Ten hotels operated by tycoon Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset Holdings have reportedly made a simi

Remember Thuch Salik? The baby-faced Cambodian street hawker became internet famous last year when he was filmed speaking a dozen languages while selling souvenirs to tourists at a temple in Angkor Wat, an ancient complex hugely popular among tourists. He's now settling down to life at a boarding school in China. Instead of attending school for half a day and working for the other half, as he’d been doing at home, the 15-year-old is now studying full-time at Hailiang Foreign Language School, a private school in eastern China. Thuch Salik, who is much smaller than classmates his age, is studying and exercising hard. He has his eye on getting into a university in Beijing. “I like it here ver

Police in eastern China arrested two men and are looking for a third who are suspected of snapping off a 4-million-year-old stalactite before stealing it from the cave where it had been on display. Surveillance footage taken at the Natural Underground Gallery in Yishui county, in the eastern province of Shandong, on April 21 showed three men taking turns to hit the stalactite with a rock, news site Iqilu.com reported on Tuesday. They took off with pieces of the mineral formation in under 30 seconds. “We call that part of the stalactite the Lovebird,” Yang Feng, an executive at the gallery, told Shandong Business Daily. “Now the tail of the Lovebird is gone.” Yang said the damaged stalactite

I knew traveling as part of a tour group was the pits. I knew that the Lunar New Year holiday is the worst time to travel. Yet when my father proposed that my family go with a group of 20 other people to Thailand for Lunar New Year, I complied. I did it out of guilt and a sense of duty, as a prodigal Chinese daughter who in the past eight years had barely seen my family. Short on time to plan a trip myself but feeling compelled to spend some time with my family, I thought I’d put up with the excruciation and the absurdity of being on a tour group. As we arrived in Bangkok in the wee hours of February 8, it turned out that more than 330,000 other Chinese people had had the same idea. Chinese

Forget doing it for the ’gram. A growing number of Chinese tourists are doing it for the ’chat – specifically WeChat, the ubiquitous app that functions as WhatsApp, Facebook and Apple Pay combined. In the past, Chinese tourists had a reputation for their voracious appetite for luxury goods. But increasingly, more are choosing unique “social experiences” over shopping malls and boutiques, a new study by management consultancy Oliver Wyman has found. Chinese people spent $258 billion in 2017 on overseas travel – the most of any nation, according to the World Tourism Organization. That means any change in how Chinese travelers spend money has a significant impact on the global tourism industry.

Milan is one of the world’s capitals of fashion and design. It boasts soaring cathedrals and stunning shopping arcades. Just don’t try to buy a bottle of water. An elderly Chinese woman who was insulted in a supermarket in Italy for speaking Chinese has led to an online discussion over language use in foreign countries. In a video circulating online, a man at an Iper supermarket in Milan was heard swearing at the woman, who was asking for the price of bottled water in a Chinese dialect. “Madam, but here we are in Italy, it is useless to speak to me in Chinese,” the man said in Italian. The man, who appeared to be filming the video himself, then delivered a string of racist insults and gibbe

“Golden Week” has come to an end. The seven-day stretch of holidays started on China's National Day on October 1 and saw hundreds of millions of Chinese on the move. Hong Kong had its own influx of tourists from mainland China. But they weren’t all in search of the city’s more well-trodden sights. On a rooftop of a shabby 10-story residential building in the heart of Hong Kong, thrill-seeking visitors scaled a six-and-a-half foot tall fence just to dangle their legs off the edge. When captured at an appropriate angle, a colorful building opposite with a mural design titled the “Rainbow Thief” forms the perfect backdrop. 'Rainbow Thief' is the title of this incredible new piece by @okudart