China Costs More This Year

Visitors to China will pay higher prices this year, with overall costs rising at least 10% and charges for restaurant meals and transportation going even higher, according to China’s top tourism agency.

China National Tourism Administration officials said that the agency has undertaken several measures to improve tourist services. Visitors have complained about erratic and delayed air and ground transport, poor hotels and food, high prices and poorly trained guides, they said.

Liu Yi, CNTA chairman, said the cost increase is due to inflation. Low official estimates put inflation in China at more than 15%.

Tourism Up

CNTA said the average foreign tourist spent $600 to $700 in China last year and that the number of foreigners visiting China rose 6.6% to 1.84 million in 1988. Tourism earnings rose 19.4% over 1987 to $2.2 billion.

CNTA officials said visitor complaints doubled in 1988 from 1987, and that two-thirds were about air travel inside China. Many other complaints focused on guides.

The domestic Chinese airlines have a reputation of canceling or delaying flights without notice, refusing to sell round-trip tickets, and poor in-flight safety and service records.

Tour Guide Upgrading

The tourism administration is being enlarged to improve services. Also planned is a new nationwide qualification exam for China’s 20,000 tour guides. The guides have often been chosen solely on the basis of minimal ability to speak a foreign language.

Another new program will be a “star-classification” system for hotels. China has about 1,300 tourist hotels, ranging from luxury hotels to primitive guest houses.