URUMQI, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) — West China’s Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region is expected to host 17.4 percent more tourists this year, local tourism authorities said Wednesday.

Xinjiang is estimated to attract 46.5 million domestic and overseas visitors in 2012, a number more than double its population of 22 million, the regional tourism bureau said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the region is expected to earn 51.4 billion yuan (8.2 billion U.S. dollars) in tourism revenues, it said.

Local authorities will increase spending to promote the development of rural tourism, as well as build star-rated tourism infrastructure, the statement said.

Regional authorities said in May 2011 that they are making efforts to turn tourism into a strategic industry and make Xinjiang into a key tourist destination in China.

Last year, Xinjiang received 39.6 million tourists, including 1.3 million foreign tourists, bringing in tourism-related revenues of 44.2 billion yuan.

BEIJING, Feb 23, 2012 (IPS) – Imported television shows watched by millions will be canned during the
country’s prime “golden time” hours, the government announced last week. Last
month, popular prime time entertainment programmes were slashed by two-
thirds. This was after programmes featuring time travel were all but banned last
year.

In the latest signs of an escalating clampdown on entertainment in China, the television broadcast
regulator has declared that “vulgar” foreign television shows – which mostly hail from Asia – will be barred
7-10pm.

The newest rules aim to boost China’s domestic television industry, forcing audiences away from Asian
competition towards local shows. Many feel that the move is also an attempt to protect state-run China
Central Television (CCTV), known for its stiff evening news and stale dramas.

The incapacitating series of regulations were felt most keenly in October when the industry watchdog, the
State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), announced a cap on mass-watched
“entertainment” shows, which were declared pure “poison” by one official.

By the end of last year, China’s 34 satellite channels had cut the number of entertainment shows – largely
spin-offs of Western hits such as American Idol and Top Gear – from 126 to just 38 during the prime-time
hours, marking a 69 percent decrease. The ban came into effect officially on Jan. 1.

In the place of the rags to riches singing competitions and sassy dating shows which have proliferated
under China’s enterprising provincial television channels, SARFT stated that each channel must air
“morality building” programmes weekly. Talent contents will be limited to just 10 nationwide per year.

“SARFT does not want provincial TV to pose a threat to the national influence of CCTV. So they have
stopped many programmes,” says Dr. Grace Leung, a visiting scholar at Beijing’s Tsinghua University who
specialises in television regulation.

In the latest rules, announced last Monday, all foreign shows – which are mainly sourced from Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea – must pass state approval.

“TV series that contain vulgar and violent scenes should not be imported,” stated China Daily, adding that
“severe punishments” will be handed out to channels who violate the new rules.

According to the state-run newspaper, the regulations will help create a “favourable environment for TV
shows made by companies on the Chinese mainland.”

Propaganda over profit remains a crucial concern for SARFT, which functions under the propaganda arm of
the Communist Party. Pushing the Party creed over the competitiveness of the television industry as a
whole remains paramount.

“With more than 96 or 97 percent of the total population (tuning in), TV is still the most influential vehicle
for propaganda. One of SARFT’s major tasks is ideological control,” says Dr Leung.

“There is concern whether (satellite stations) are doing the correct job to educate their audience rather
than provide entertainment alone. So profit making is not a primary concern for them – they would prefer
to stick to their original task of educating and propaganda to prevent controversial issues arising,” she
adds.

Programmes that have felt the full force of the state truncheon over the past year include the highly
marketable “time-travel” genre, in which characters travel back in time to different dynasties.

In September, SARFT suspended Super Girl, a Pop Idol spin-off. At its peak it generated 400 million
messages. Further victims include the dating show If You Are The One, which, although still running, has
curtailed its more salacious elements in favour of heavy-handed moral messages.

“The cycle of tightening and loosening up is nothing new in China,” says Ying Zhu, author of Two Billion
Eyes: The Story of China Central Television. “Obviously the tightening up cannot last long when the issue
of bread and butter is at stake. The real clash is between the mandate of a Chinese cultural tradition
dictated by morality and the demand of a market system dictated by profit.”

The newest regulations, however, might backfire. Internet users in China now number over 500 million and
many people are switching off their television sets in favour of finding entertainment on their smart
phones and laptops, where censorship is less pervasive and the state has less hold.

“Only people like my mother-in-law would watch (programmes) on TV and now even she has switched to
the Internet,” says Raymond Zhou, 49, a Beijing-based newspaper columnist and social critic. “These
regulations are going to drive more and more young people away from television, because they are leaving
anyway. You are giving them the extra push – now they leave happily.”
(END)

Li Kaishou, the deputy director of Hubei Provincial Tourism Administration made a speech at the promotion meeting on Feb 15 in Wuhan.

A promotion meeting for the fifth Jingmen Rape Flowers Travel Festival and other tourism products was held on Feb 15 in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province. This festival boasts 10 travel programs that feature landscapes, health spas, eco-agriculture, folk culture and other local characteristics.

Jingmen, called China’s “agricultural valley” in Hubei province, is famous for its vastness and magnificent fields of rape flowers. According to Zheng Zhonghua, vice mayor of Jingmen city, many tourists are attracted by the distinctive travel programs. This includes the Rape Flowers Travel Festival, Zhongxiang Longevity Culture Festival and the Yuanyang Stream Drifting Festival in Jingmen, which are only a two hour drive from Wuhan.

Last year, the building of “China’s agricultural valley” became a provincial development strategy. Jingmen took this opportunity to invest a generous amount in new scenic spots such as the Huzhao Moutain and the forested corridor of Dakou.

Melbourne celebrated Chinese New Year with an influx of travellers visiting from China, with a 33.8 percent increase in visitors from the region in January 2012 compared to the same month last year.

According to Melbourne Airport monthly figures, in total international arrivals jumped 5.8 percent for the month with an additional 36,556 passengers passing through it gates.

The increase was lead by Chinese arrivals visiting to celebrate the Chinese New Year, followed by visitors from Hong Kong and Taiwan with a 32.6 percent and 24.3 percent growth on the same month 2011.

Melbourne Airport chief executive Chris Woodruff explained Melbourne was a “great” region for embracing significant events.

“Chinese New Year is a significant celebration and people made the most of the holiday with passport holders from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan all increasing by more than 20 per cent,” Mr Woodruff said.

“The latest International Visitor Survey figures show that foreign visitors are increasingly spending time in Victoria.

“This figure is increasing almost four times more than change in visitors to New South Wales and Queensland combined.

“It’s clear that Victoria is a popular place to visit.”

Also making an impact in growth was arrivals from the USA, with 13.5 percent more arrivals compared to January last year while 15.1 percent more Canadians made the trek into Melbourne over the same period.

Despite the international appeal, domestic suffered a one percent drop in January this year compared to 2011, with 1.827 million domestic passengers.

Chinese tourists arrive on the Gold Coast via China Southern Airlines.
Source: The Courier-Mail

THE Australian travel industry must adapt to meet the coming boom in the outbound market from China.

Pacific Asia Travel Association chief executive officer Martin Craigs says Australia must be “export ready” for an increase in tourists from China in the coming years.

“It’s a global issue because it’s so huge,” Mr Craigs said.

Of the 100 million outbound mainland Chinese tourists predicted by PATA, half are expected to visit Hong Kong and Macau, “but that still leaves the odd million a week going somewhere else”, Mr Craigs said.

The Chinese were “tourists who are high net worth and spending a great deal when on holiday”.

For instance, high-end British department store Selfridges now employs 10 Mandarin-speaking staff for their Chinese customers who spend an average of $1638.

“So if you are a retailer, it makes sense to provide people who can welcome those visitors,” Mr Craigs said.

Australian travel operators need to step up to ensure they receive the maximum benefit from the China market.

Tourism Australia data for 2011 showed arrivals from China represented the fastest growing market segment and was No.3 in total arrivals, behind only New Zealand and the United Kingdom, for total arrivals to Australia of 5.9 million.

Arrivals from China gained by almost 20 per cent to 542,000 from 453,800 a year earlier, excluding arrivals from Hong Kong.

TWEED tourism leaders will head to China next week in an attempt to attract a bigger slice of the Chinese tourism market.

Northern Rivers Tourism will be part of the delegation which will attend the Greater China Sales Mission which is an initiative of the NSW Government.

Chief executive of Northern Rivers Tourism Russell Mills said his goal was simply to increase the number of Chinese visitors to the Tweed.

“This is a first look at the potential to establish visitation from China to the Northern Rivers as part of a visit to Australia,” he said.
Mr Mills said in order to attract more visitors, the delegation would be learning about Chinese culture in order to formulate a strategy which would appeal to the market.

“Our primary objective is to gain insights into Chinese culture,” he said.

Gold Coast Airport chief executive Paul Donovan said access to the region was better than ever with last week’s announcement of Singapore Airlines budget carrier, Scoot.

“Following Gold Coast Airport’s announcement of Singapore Airlines subsidiary Scoot Airlines flying between Singapore and the Gold Coast, there will soon be another new route announced by Scoot between China and Singapore,” he said.

Mr Donovan said Chinese tourists having direct access to the Gold Coast from Asian hubs would definitely have flow-on effects for the Tweed and Byron shires.

“Access to the Northern Rivers from China via the hubs of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore is a great opportunity for early adopters of independent travel to visit new destinations like Byron Bay and the Northern Rivers region,” he said.

Taipei, Feb. 22 (CNA) Tourists from as many as nine more cities in China may be allowed to travel not as part of a group to Taiwan, bringing to 12 the number of cities whose residents are eligible to visit Taiwan as independent travelers, according to tourism industry sources.

In addition to the seven additional cities that are expected to join the Free Independent Traveler program, Fuzhou and Chengdu may be the latest to be included in the program, sources attending a cross-strait tourism industry meeting in China said Tuesday.

That will bring the total number of cities newly added to the FIT program to nine. Currently, only three cities are on the list.

Representatives from the Taipei-based Taiwan Strait Tourism Association and the Beijing-headquartered Cross-Strait Tourism Association reportedly have reached an agreement to open Taiwan to seven more cities including Tianjin, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Xi’an, and Jinan, in a meeting in Hong Kong Feb. 8-9.

However, the two associations have not finalized on which cities will join the program and are expected to make a formal announcement on their agreement in March.

The FIT program, which kicked off last June, allows up to 500 people from Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen to visit Taiwan per day without having to be part of a tour group.

(By Chen Hung-chin and Scully Hsiao)
enditem/sc

When you design a city around a car, you end up with a sprawl — just look at Los Angeles or Houston. The architects at SOM are designing a green-minded city for China that will still let cars in, but the focus of the city is such that you won’t really even need one, even if you’re traveling all over China.

China has chosen Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings Merrill (SOM, not to be confused with SOMA) for an award for its design of what Beijing Bohai Innovation City could look like. The Bohai Rim expansion would put more commercial and residential space along the high-speed railway linking Beijing to the steadily growing metropolis of Tianjin and its Tanggu seaport.

See that glowing, rippling structure toward the bottom right in the image above? That’s the rail station, and Innovation City’s link to Tianjin, Beijing and the rest of China. Read: no car necessary if you want to travel elsewhere, even abroad — seaports and airports are a train ticket away. Even within the city, SOM’s design calls for plenty of green spaces and fewer roads, meaning more room for bikers and pedestrians and less for automobiles. The car isn’t banned though, so the city won’t be China’s Venice.

“The new district will leverage the high-speed rail to bridge two major metropolitan areas,” SOM designer Thomas Hussey said in a statement by the firm. He added that it will “create a sustainable urban environment that concentrates walkable, compact densities around transit stations, while still preserving existing agriculture and green space.”

The city would also be well-positioned to take advantage of China’s future plans, such as that Bermuda-sized mega-airport that’s in the works for Beijing.

ATLANTA, Feb. 22, 2012 — /PRNewswire/ – Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) today announced expanded codeshare agreements with China Eastern and China Southern airlines, two of the largest carriers in the People’s Republic of China, which will provide more options for customers traveling between the United States and China.

The agreements, recently approved by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, will allow both Chinese carriers to place their codes and flight numbers on Delta-operated flights between Seattle and Beijing. In addition, China Eastern will place its code and flight numbers on Delta-operated flights between Detroit and Beijing.

“We thank the Civil Aviation Administration of China for approving our expanded partnership with China Eastern and China Southern, which provides significant new options for customers of all three carriers and will enhance travel and trade between our nations,” said Vinay Dube, Delta’s senior vice president – Asia Pacific.

The airlines’ agreement already allows China Eastern to codeshare on Delta’s flight between Detroit and Shanghai; and allows Delta to codeshare on China Eastern-operated flights from New York and Los Angeles to Shanghai as well as China Southern’s service between Los Angeles and Guangzhou.

In addition, once the expanded codeshare is implemented, Delta and China Eastern will provide codeshare service to 34 cities within the U.S and China, while Delta and China Southern will provide codeshare to 18 cities in the two nations.

China Southern and China Eastern are both members of the SkyTeam international alliance, which also includes Delta. Later this year, Xiamen Airlines, which operates a network of domestic and regional services throughout China and Asia and whose major shareholder is China Southern, also will join SkyTeam.

The new codeshare approvals pave the way for increased cooperation that will enable Delta and its Chinese partners to jointly develop improved services for the mutual benefit of their customers.

Delta Air Lines serves more than 160 million customers each year. Delta was named by Fortune magazine as the most admired airline worldwide in its 2011 World’s Most Admired Companies airline industry list, and was named the “Top Tech-Friendly U.S. Airline” by PCWorld magazine for its innovation in technology. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 342 destinations in 61 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 700 aircraft. A founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance, Delta participates in the industry’s leading trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 13,000 daily flights, with hubs in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-JFK, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City and Tokyo-Narita. The airline’s service includes the SkyMiles frequent flier program, a world-class airline loyalty program; the award-winning BusinessElite service; and more than 50 Delta Sky Clubs in airports worldwide. Delta is investing more than $2 billion through 2013 in airport facilities and global products, services and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Customers can check in for flights, print boarding passes, check bags and review flight status at delta.com.

SOURCE Delta Air Lines

By Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA, Feb 21 (Reuters) – China’s leader-in-waiting
Xi Jinping praised Turkey’s growing role on Tuesday in trying to
resolve regional issues such as the Iranian nuclear dispute and
Middle East conflicts.

In Turkey on the last leg of a trip that also took him to
the United States and Ireland, Xi is almost sure to succeed Hu
Jintao as Chinese president in just over a year.

He was feted by U.S. leaders eager to see China import more
from the United States but in Turkey on Tuesday, he was greeted
by protests outside his Ankara hotel by some 60 Turkic-speaking
Uighurs from China’s northwestern Xinjiang province.

Waving the flag of East Turkestan, pale blue with a white
star and crescent, the protesters burnt a Chinese flag and a
poster of Xi before police moved in to disperse them.

Rights groups accuse China of abuses during a crackdown
after Uighur riots in 2009 and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan then described the events as a “genocide”.

Xi said China had made great strides to raise the living
standards of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

Turkey and China are at either end of a political and
economic axis stretching along the old silk road though Central
Asia, Iran and Afghanistan. Both have strong, sometimes
competing economic interests in the region.

Turkey, now the world’s 16th biggest economy and only second
to China in growth last year, has projected itself as a stable
Muslim democracy, making it a key player at a time of turmoil
and unrest in the Middle East.

“A member of the G20 with a growing economy and an important
country in the Middle East, Turkey has for a long time tried to
bring stability and development to the region and played an
active role in trying to solve ‘hot’ issues,” Xi told Turkey’s
Sabah newspaper listing Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear and
Middle East peace efforts.

Turkey has sought to mediate between the West and Iran in a
dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme and has broadly shared
China’s opposition to stronger sanctions against Tehran.

But on Syria their positions have been sharply at odds.

While Turkey has taken a leading role in pressuring Syria’s
President Bashar al-Assad to step down, China, along with
Russia, this month blocked a draft U.N. Security Council
resolution that backed an Arab plan urging him to quit.

China has also not decided whether to accept an invitation
to discuss Syria with other world powers this week in Tunisia, a
meeting Turkey’s foreign minister will attend and Ankara hopes
will keep up pressure for Assad to step down.

Xi met President Abdullah Gul on Tuesday and signed six
bilateral economic agreements. He will later travel to Istanbul
to meet Erdogan, who is recovering from surgery at home there.

On Wednesday, Xi attends a business forum in Istanbul, where
he is likely to be assailed by exporters eager to try to bridge
a gaping trade gap.

China is Turkey’s 15th biggest export market with nearly
$2.5 billion of Turkish goods sold there last year, a rise of
8.7 percent. But some $21.6 billion worth of Chinese goods were
imported to Turkey in 2011, up 26 percent from 2010.

(Additional reporting by Jon Hemming and Jonathon Burch;
Writing by Jon Hemming Editing by Maria Golovnina)