China Woos Travel Agents to Recover Tourist Trade

China wooed 400 foreign travel agents today with wine and words of friendship as it tried to persuade them to bring back lucrative tours that were canceled when martial law was imposed in Beijing.

Bo Xicheng, director of the Beijing Tourism Administration, said, however, that “we’re not going to lift martial law just because a few tourists won’t come to China.”

Zhou Dayan, a spokeswoman for the tourism administration, said the conference’s mission was urgent. “Maybe in the second half of the year we can draw some tourists,” she said.

Luxury hotels emptied except for staff, and gift shop clerks napped behind their counters as China’s tourism industry, which made $2.2 billion last year, faced major losses.

Bo recounted the government’s explanation that the army crackdown was necessary, but his main theme was the money being lost on both sides.

“Perhaps we have different views and understandings of some problems, but this does not prevent us from doing business on an equal and mutually beneficial basis,” he told the agents before they were taken to Tian An Men Square, formerly the heart of the protests.

The travel agents were reassured by the calm on the streets, but said the immediate outlook is poor.

“These soldiers have their fingers on the triggers,” Gloria Copeland of Trinity Travel in Toronto said of troops standing guard on city streets. “They’re going to have to sling (the guns) behind their backs before tourists come back.”