"China will come up with new tour packages to attract more
Japanese tourists," Sun Gang, deputy director of China's National
Tourism Administration, said at the China-Japan Culture and Tourism
Forum held Saturday in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.
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The forum was held to evaluate declining tourism cooperation
between the two countries.
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At the forum, officials and professionals from the Chinese and
Japanese tourism sectors discussed how to expand the scale of
visits between the two peoples and exchanged views on specific
cooperation options.
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Among the tourists to China, the number of Japanese tourists to
China was 3.39 million, an increase of only 1.7 percent over
2004.
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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the
Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates World War II criminals, have
been highlighted by Chinese authorities as one of the factors
influencing the drop in personnel exchanges.
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2006 has been earmarked as a year of China-Japan tourism exchange.
Chinese tourism departments at various levels have plans to
organize more than sixty events ranging from cultural activities to
photo exhibitions, Sun said.
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Tourism heads from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea will also
meet in July in Japan to discuss further tourism cooperation, Sun
said.
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(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2006)