China blocks takeoff of new airlines

BEIJING - For those entrepreneurs interested in cashing in on China's booming airline sector, there is bad news afoot. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the country's industry regulator, has announced that it will not entertain any new airline applications until 2010, meaning there will be no new airlines in China until 2011 at the earliest. Under China's 11th Five-Year Plan, $17.5 billion is being spent on airport expansion and construction. While a portion of this will go to airport expansion in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, $6.67 billion will go to airports in China's western regions.

Tourism Board Travel: China

Visiting China can be a wonderful experience, full of visits to sites of unparalleled human achievement like The Great Wall. And the China National Tourist Office is quite happy to have you see that--rather than the country's sites of unparalleled injustice like Tiananmen Square. Its website runs point on keeping visitors at the former and away from the latter.

China – the Future of Travel

Since 1999, China has embarked on an unprecedented rate of travel industry growth domestically and internationally. This rate is expected to remain stable at over 10% for the next 12 years, on course to make China the top tourist destination and tourism source market by 2020. The WTM-ChinaContact forum is the only international event outside of China that is designed to unlock the mystery of doing business with China’s tourism sector. Through a series of forums and interactive workshops, delegates will learn effective communication methods and understand how to navigate the legal and financial obstacles in the way.

See China, speak Mandarin

My itinerary, drawn up by the travel company Bales Worldwide with the warning that I was about to get “very tired indeed”, went like this: storm into Beijing, visit the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, sprint up the Great Wall, meet several thousand terracotta warriors in Xian, hammer over to Shanghai, then on to Guilin to sail down the Li River, and stagger home via Hong Kong. Along the way, I planned to test my Mandarin, or what remains of it.

China - Hotels Required to Provide Condoms

In an effort to curb the spread of AIDS, all hotels, resorts and public showers will be required to provide condoms as well as AIDS prevention pamphlets. Once considered to be a disease of gays, sex workers and drug users, Chinese health officials now claim that the virus has entered into the general population. Officially under communist China, sex workers, gays and drug users did not exist in China.

Officials hail improved air quality during car ban

Beijing's overall air quality improved during the four-day test period ahead of next August's Olympic Games in which more than a million cars each day were barred from the roads, according to the Beijing Environment Protection Monitoring Center. The test resulted in the removal of cars from roads in downtown Beijing and the air quality was classified as "fairly good" for the duration of the four days. "The index of inhalable particular matter (IPM), a major air pollutant, was 91, 93, 95, 95 over the past four days while it was 116 on Thursday," said Zhao Yue, a senior engineer with the center.

BEIJING OLYMPICS - Getting tickets and a room

Although the 2008 Summer Olympics, being held in Beijing from Aug. 8 until Aug. 24, are still a full year away, making plans to attend the games has already come down to a roulettelike gamble of hurry-up-and-wait, with choices narrowing as time goes by. The most important task is securing tickets, which can be difficult. Only a certain number of tickets are allocated to each country, and direct ticket-buying in each is only available to local residents. Unfortunately, the cutoff date for entering the lottery to reserve the exact tickets you want was June 30. But, though there are few guarantees of actually scoring a seat, there are other options if you're willing to compromise on price or on which events you attend.

Secret treasures of Yunnan

Yunnan, which means "land below the clouds," lies just north of the Lao and Burmese borders, and is China's most varied province, with terrain featuring snowcapped mountain peaks as well as steaming tropical jungles. Yunnan is also home to more than one third of all China's indigenous minorities, not to mention the site of more than half of all the country's entire plant and animal species. Heading north from Yuanyang, I went to visit the well known Yunnanese cities of Dali and Lijiang, famed for their quaint cobbled streets, romantic canals, and Bai and Naxi minority groups.

China's rich are young and keen to travel

BEIJING (Reuters) - Compared with other countries, China's new urban rich are younger, better educated and keener to travel, a survey by international credit card organisation MasterCard showed on Monday. In general, Hong Kong and Macau remain the top two foreign destinations for newly affluent Chinese. But among those who have been abroad at least five times, Europe and the United States are becoming the favourite destinations, the survey found.

Yangshuo - A plague on paradise in China

YANGSHUO, China Just 15 years ago Yangshuo was a small village, generally visited for a few hours by those on tours down the Li River; most Chinese tourists elected to take advantage of Guilin's superior accommodation options. After some favorable reports by adventurous overseas guests and glowing write-ups in the ubiquitous Lonely Planet series, Yangshuo gradually became known on Asia's backpacker circuit, offering cheap hostels and banana pancakes to laowai (foreigners) on a budget.

Online travel bookings boom in China

China's leading online travel agent, Ctrip.com, reported stronger than expected second quarter results this week, indicating growing interest in online flight, hotel and vacation package bookings in the world's most populous nation. Ctrip's Net revenues jumped 52 per cent year-on-year to $37.8m. Ctrip's strongest growth was in air ticket sales, which rose 67 per cent over the past year. The company sold about 2.55 million air tickets during the three months from April to June,

Get out your best, China

One year from today - Aug. 8, 2008 - the Olympic Games will hold its Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, China, with the competition running through Aug. 24. And yet, a year's not that far away. If you're considering going, planning should start now, and along those lines, here are some things you might want to know as you start figuring out what to do and how to do it: Do I need a passport?

On tour with a teenager in China

Yangshuo was one of the most beautiful places we visited and, despite the outrageous humidity and heat, we cycled through the limestone peaks and gorges that have inspired iconic Chinese paintings over the centuries. We breakfasted beside the River Li where bamboo rafts kitted out with bamboo armchairs took visitors skimming along the river and over rapids. Parts of the area had the air of the hippy trail in India twenty or so years ago. Today’s version features bamboo huts playing Razorlight while their inhabitants try to sell raft rides to mellowed-out chess players along the river bank.

China Travel Tips

These China Travel Tips, Survival Techniques, will help you get around and make your trip to China easier, so you will be able to experience the real China with a little less stress. China is an odd beast that needs to be respected; the major cities, Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian, all have their own personalities. Some complex situations that you think would be an organizational disaster turn out to be great and you wonder afterward what all the fuss and worry was about. Then the simplest of tasks can turn out to be a major calamity.

China online travel services ready for take-off

Last year, at least 2.75 million Chinese booked hotel rooms, air tickets and other travel services on the Internet, up 72 percent from the previous year, according to a report recently released by Shanghai-based iResearch Consulting Group. China's online travel market was worth some 1.54 billion yuan ($204 million) last year, a growth of 82 percent from 2005, the report said. The findings are based on a month-long survey in November with responses from 60,000 Internet users across China.

Booking Travel In China

April Zhu is based in the Shanghai representative office of FMC Asia-Pacific and is responsible for handling corporate travel planning. Appropriately for a person with her role, she enjoys traveling for pleasure as well as for business. I would recommend Kanas in Xinjiang. Kanas Lake is surrounded by snow topped mountains. It offers unparalleled scenery with its green slopes and thick forests, colorful flowers and lively butterflies; and beautiful lakes and mountains. The spot can be visited any time during the year and offers different scenery in different seasons.