IT was the mystical, Oriental allure which once drew travellers to China where they gaped at the Great Wall and admired its mountainous and pristine surroundings.
With the country's big strides towards economic development, traditional travellers, who trekked the difficult terrain to explore its vastness, are being outnumbered by investors hungry for a slice of China's booming economy.
The country's abundant and cheap labour force, coupled with vast lands, are eyed as gems to be mined for big profits, resulting in a wave of business travellers thronging to China to explore investment possibilities.
The surge in business travellers came sometime in the mid-1980s and slowed in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square incident.
However, dynamic growth of the Chinese economy following the incident has seen a return of business travellers, foreign visitors and overseas Chinese going back to visit their ancestral motherland and renew old family ties.
China is now a major destination for business travellers. In fact, the recent growth in tourist arrivals has been mainly driven by business travellers as opposed to leisure travellers, who seem to have been deterred by the deterioration of scenic spots and resorts.
Poor transport services in secondary cities, deceitful merchants, a high crime rate, limited telecommunications networks and traffic congestion are among other factors that have kept leisure travellers away.
