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China to Be Tourism Giant on Earth
Sources show that the population of foreign tourists in China last year was 40 times that of the 1978 figure. With the development of China, domestic tourists spent 720 million yuan last year, and the total income from tourism of China in the same year was 400 billion yuan. For this reason, China has been listed by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) as the 5th largest tourist country and its tour revenue has ranked it 7th in the world.
Of late, the WTO selected last year's top 10 tourist attractions in Asia. On the list, China's hinterland comes first followed by Hong Kong and Thailand.
Statistics from the WTO show that last year, 27.047 million tourists visited the inland of China, ranking it first in Asia; 11.328 million and 8.651 million people toured Hong Kong and Thailand respectively. However, compared with 1998, China¡¯s inland had the lowest rate of increase in the number of tourists, or only 8 percent; China¡¯s Hong Kong had the highest growth rate, 18.3 percent; and Thailand, 10.3 percent.
Sources say that the Chinese government has put tourism in two-thirds of provinces and cities in the position of economic pillar or industry for priority development. In the meantime, China has offered preferential measures to support investments in infrastructure construction of transportation and in large projects of tourist scenic areas.
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