Smelly toilets not a cool novelty anymore: How China is trying to attract more foreign tourists
After years of declining numbers, authorities try to lure back overseas visitors to the mainland with easier visa formalities and better services
Sally Smith and her friends are sat on the stairs of Beijing’s Silk Street, a shopping mall in a high-end area home to numerous embassies. One of them swipes desperately at her mobile phone, trying to work out their route back to the hotel.
“We can’t get a taxi, as taxi drivers just say no, even we have the address in Chinese,” the 42-year-old Londoner says. “I would love to go on the subway, but I would get lost – we can’t understand anything because we don’t speak the language.
“At least in Hong Kong, you can read English and know where to go, but here we don’t see any English signs, apart from in restaurants.”
After three consecutive years of declining inbound tourist numbers, China is launching a slew of measures to attract travellers, easing visa arrangements, introducing a tax refund policy and upgrading toilets.
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Visits by foreign tourists declined by 2.2 per cent in 2012 to 132 million, then by a further 2.5 per cent in 2013 and 0.45 per cent in 2014, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).