Global Reaction

Chinese tourists warned of travel dangers

By Tan Zongyang and Shi Yingying (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-15 08:11

A pleasure boat rests on top of a building in a sea of debris in Otsuchi, Iwate prefecture, on Monday. Yomiuri Shimbun Via Agence France-Presse

BEIJING / SHANGHAI - China's tourism authorities on Sunday asked people to be prudent before traveling to Japan and warned Chinese tourists in the country about aftershocks.

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The National Tourism Administration (NTA) suggested that tourists avoid visiting Fukushima and Sendai, where quake and tsunami damage is the most severe.

Many Chinese travel agencies have suspended Japan-bound tours after the devastating earthquake struck the country last Friday and are now busy arranging the return of stranded travelers.

Major tourism agencies, such as China Travel Service, China International Travel Service (CITS), CYTS Tours, Ctrip Travel, Comfort Travel and Caissa International Travel Service, said that they have been withdrawing tour groups from Japan, and they will refund all tour fees, except fees for visas if they have been issued, to customers who decide to cancel their trips.

"Our last tour groups stranded in Japan will all return home on Tuesday," Ma Xing, a marketing staff member with Ctrip Travel, told China Daily.

The agency said it had nine tour groups with a total of 193 tourists traveling around the country when the quake struck.

"Our two groups of 34 tourists will fly back to Fujian province from Tokyo on Monday," said Yao Yao, marketing manager with the Beijing-based company China Comfort Travel.

"Due to safety concerns, we would wait until April before our tour groups can return to destinations such as Fukuoka and Kagoshima," said Liu Xin from China Youth Travel Service's Shanghai office.

She explained that both tour groups and individual travel was on hold.

Luo Jun, an official from Guangdong province foreign affairs office, said 777 tourists from the province were traveling in Japan when the quake struck, and none were killed or injured.

Luo said that most had returned, with the remaining 212 due to return by Wednesday.

With its extraordinary natural scenery such as Mount Fuji, metropolitan city tours in Tokyo and Nara, ski resorts such as Niseko in Hokkaido and its unique cuisine and hot spring hotels, Japan was the number one foreign destination for Chinese tourists last year.

Last July, Japan eased conditions for granting visas to individual Chinese tourists. The number of tourists from China hit a record of 1.97 million in 2010, an increase of 26.82 percent compared with 2009, according to the Chinese National Tourism Academy.

Industry insiders said the earthquake and tsunami will have a big impact on the travel market.

Zhang Wei, general manager of the outbound travel department of CITS, told China Daily that the agency planned to send 1,400 tourists to Japan in March and April, but its plans were now on hold.

"Although some customers would like to go after the disaster, we tried to dissuade them from going there due to concerns over aftershocks," she said.

A employee of Caissa Travel Service told China Daily the agency has already received requests from more than 200 tourists to cancel their trips.

Wang Ying, Li Wenfang and Xinhua contributed to this story.

China Daily