Mekong speeds up tourist flow
Efforts to turn 'The Mekong' into an international tourism destination are likely to further reinforce the growing independence of China's Yunnan province from the rest of the country's travel industry.
The Mekong is a loose coalition of the official tourism bodies in Cambodia, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, with Yunnan representing China. The coalition is new, with much of the market formation concept funded by American Express.
Its attraction is the Mekong river, which flows through the countries and forms much of the border between Laos and Thailand. The river rises on the Tibetan plateau in China's Qinghai Province, and flows 4,500 km towards the South China Sea in Vietnam.
Participation by Yunnan underlines its outward-looking approach to the travel business.
It has shown its independent streak through its aviation activities.
When the planned reform of China's airlines was first announced in 1984, the airline designated to cover the country's southwest region, including Yunnan, was China Southwest Airlines based in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan.
But the government plan for aviation was never completely implemented. By 1987 there was an announcement in Yunnan that the province planned to form its own airline in partnership with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) - then an airline as well as the government department controlling civil aviation in the country.
Yunnan Airlines was established in 1992, when it became clear that the CAAC link was related to CAAC's civil aviation role, and not through any shareholder participation.
The airline now operates seven Boeing B737s, the most popular small aircraft in China.
But its order for three B767-300s - the first of which is due to be delivered this month followed by the others in June and next January - was interpreted as a significant new policy direction. This 263-seat aircraft is designed to operate on medium to long-range routes compared with the short-haul B737.
Yunnan Airlines had already shown its interest in international expansion, when it was at the forefront of the liberalisation of routes to Singapore in 1993.
At that time, five Chinese airlines requested access, or expanded access, into Singapore - China Eastern from Shanghai, China Southern from Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China Southwest from Chengdu, China Northwest from Xian. Yunnan converted the designation of its flights from charter to scheduled.
Six airlines operate international routes into Yunnan's capital, Kunming - Air China, China Southern, Dragonair, Silk Air, Thai Airways and Yunnan.
Kunming airport was the fastest growing of China's top 10 airports after Shenzhen and Hainan, expanding 30 per cent a year to handle 2.4 million passengers in 1994.
The airline carries about two million passengers a year, making it about the country's seventh-largest carrier.
The Mekong tourism initiative is still in its early days, but Yunnan is an enthusiastic participant.
Yunnan has 39 million people in an area of 390,000 sq km. It has five important tourism attractions - the Stone Forest, Dali, Lijiang, Xishuangbanna, as well as its capital, Kunming.
The capital's attractions are centred on the city's Green Lake. The Green Lake hotel, opened in 1994, was to be managed by Hong Kong's KYZ Hotels or the Holiday Inn but no contract materialised and it is now self-managing.
Also indicating that foreign participation is difficult is the fact two other hotel companies - Accor, and Hong Kong-based Stanford - have only listed hotel development plans in Kunming.
But the most ambitious is Club Med which was reported to be planning a 200-room holiday resort on 20 hectares by the Yangzhong Hai Lake, as part of the 500-ha Spring City Resort, 36 km from the city.
Another tourism attraction in Yunnan is the Stone Forest, 80 km from Kunming, and named after its limestone pillars that spread over 80 ha. Dali, 370 km west of Kunming, is a cultural centre and home to the Bai peoples as well as being the site of a temple complex close to the town.
Lijiang is more of a sightseeing centre, 200 km from Dali, with its gorge, mountain and also the ancient city of the Dongba ancestral culture.
The other attraction of the province is Xishuangbanna, on the border of Laos and Myanmar. Its attractions are flora and fauna, including rice cultivation, as well as the Buddhist temples similar to those found across the border.
There were just under 600,000 foreign visitor arrivals in Yunnan last year. Most were what China calls 'compatriots' (ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) amounting to 125,000 visitors, closely followed by Thailand (110,000), then Malaysia (65,000), and Singapore (60,000).
Overall visitor arrival numbers are difficult to break down, but Yunnan may be the largest destination of the Mekong region in terms of visitor arrivals. Murray Bailey is editor of Travel Business Analyst in Hong Kong.
