Picture of uncertainty as China tourism figures tumble

Australian Bureau of Statistics data for the month revealed Chinese arrivals plummeted 9.4 per cent compared with November 2012 -- after years of solid growth. "If this is a trend it is of some concern," said Accor's honorary chairman, David Baffsky, commenting yesterday on the drop in Chinese visitors.

Chinese visitors spent $4.6 billion in the year to September, according to government figures, the second-largest figure after New Zealand tourists. China Eastern Airlines general manager Kathy Zhang said Chinese tourist arrivals had been dropping since October when the Chinese government cracked down on the operators of illegal shopping tours that make up more than half of the tours between China and Australia.

Tourism groups also blamed the new China Tourism Law which is aimed at stamping out cheap Chinese tour operators who offer very low prices and very low quality. Tourism Australia flagged the expected impact on the inbound tourism sector last year.

"We have known about the tourism law for a while now, and always knew that it would have implications, most particularly on the group tour market, when it came into force in October," a Tourism Australia spokesperson China relents on most Western journalists' visas said yesterday. The impact was not unique to the Australian market as New Zealand and Asia reported similar trends in their Chinese arrivals, the spokesperson said.

Destinations such as NSW and Queensland, where commissioned shopping activities are more prevalent, would more likely be affected than Tasmania and South Australia.

TTF chief executive Ken Morrison said the reforms aimed at ensuring Chinese visitors had a quality tourism experience that still represented good value and that they returned home sharing their positive stories of Australia. However, China Southern said its business was not affected by the new laws.

"China Southern continued to record strong growth from China to Australia during 2013, rising by 11 per cent over 2012," China Southern's regional general manager, Henry He, said last night. "We put this down to (three) main factors -- Australia's ongoing popularity as a medium-haul destination for Chinese travellers, continued strong marketing of Australia in China by Tourism Australia and the various state tourism bodies, and continuing enhancements to our own services including a complete fleet upgrade into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth last year."

China relents on most Western journalists' visas

The country is still on track to force at least one New York Times reporter to leave for the second year in a row, however. Austin Ramzy, a journalist who previously worked for Time magazine, has not been given press accreditation or a permanent visa since he joined the Times, according to journalists in Beijing. When his journalist visa expired at the end of December, he was given a temporary visa at the last minute, which does not allow him to report from within China. Once the temporary visa expires at the end of January, he will be forced to leave, after reporting for more than six years from China. All foreign journalists in China and their families are given visas that expire in December each year, a special restriction imposed by the government. Last month, as visas were due to expire for journalists at the New York Times, Bloomberg News and other organisations, the government refused until the last moment to accept their applications for visa renewal. The government's last-minute decision to issue them press credentials and accept visa applications came after a personal appeal by Vice President Joe Biden to China's president.

By Thursday, most reporters at the Times had received visas, and many Bloomberg reporters have received their visas, as well, according to several journalists in Beijing who were not authorised to give their names. The Washington Post, which has two correspondents in China, received a visa for one journalist in December and for the second on Thursday. Visa problems at Bloomberg and the Times occurred after the two organisations published articles about corruption among top Communist Party leaders. The massive wealth acquired by "princelings" - relatives of elite government figures - is considered a sensitive issue by the government. While journalists who are already in China have been able to renew their visas, neither the Times nor Bloomberg has been able to obtain visas for journalists newly hired for positions in China, journalists say.

The Times' bureau chief, Philip Pan, has not been given a journalist visa for China after almost two years of trying. And last year, reporter Chris Buckley was forced out of the country after he left Reuters to work for the Times. Access in China to the websites of Bloomberg and the Times has also been blocked by censors since 2012, when the controversial articles were published. In addition, new Chinese-language websites for the Times have been blocked, along with the Chinese website of the BBC, which has long been blocked. But the Chinese-language websites of some foreign news services that have been sporadically blocked in the past, including those of Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, do not appear to be censored.

Lynchburg Man Trapped In Scary Overseas Court Case

Stranded overseas; the fight for one Lynchburg man to be freed from what was a dream trip that turned into a nasty nightmare. 35 year old Sherman Hughes, a Lynchburg native, and professor of international relations was spending time in the Dominican Republic, trying to set up an exchange program. A few weeks ago his trip took a turn for the worst. Among the palm trees of paradise, it was a fire that sparked it all. Hughes, a young educator, now blamed for a blaze he says he didn't start; being held against his will, with potentially 30 years in jail awaiting him. They actually ended up charging me with the fire and saying that I was the actual culprit of the fire" said Hughes. The damage is obvious inside of Sherman Hughes' condo in the Dominican Republic. He's charged with starting the fire. He faces potentially 30 years behind bars overseas, for a crime he says he didn't commit.

"Their lawyer fabricated the story. He fabricated the story that made it seem that I was the actual arson in this situation and that I deserve to be in jail for 30 years" he said. Hughes was abroad working to create an exchange program with American schools. He went to the beach one day, when he returned, his apartment was near destroyed, his valuables missing. The condo rental company blamed him; he would spend two Why Make Visiting So Hard? days in jail. Hughes says it's all a scheme to have him pay up, "The jail was just a psychological tactic on me because I'm an American, they think I'm very wealthy" he said. His options are to pay $10,000, or fight his charge, and potentially become a convicted criminal. "I knew that Sherman was probably in a situation where he could be in danger" said his father, Abe Hughes.

His parents, Karen and Abe Hughes sit 1400 miles away; helpless in their Lynchburg home. I was floored, being in another country, my son going to jail for something I know he didn't do" said Karen Hughes. The state department and embassy Sherman says have dragged their feet in helping him. He's attempting to raise the money he needs, negotiate with the legal system, and be out before the end of the month. "I don't know if they're going to accept the money I've already raised as enough, but we're going to try and see" he said. So far, Sherman has managed to raise $3,200. His lawyer negotiates with his rental company and the judge on Friday. His tourist Visa expires on the 14th, he has a flight back to the states on that date. It's then he's hoping he'll be home.

Why Make Visiting So Hard?

As many Americans living or traveling overseas returned home for the holidays in the past couple of weeks, a lot of them spent time stuck in long lines to clear immigration and customs, staring at warnings about the symptoms of measles and Middle East respiratory syndrome. But far longer waits were reserved for foreigners coming to the U.S. for business or tourism, supporting an industry that employs 8 million Americans. Recent research suggests that if the U.S. made the process of visiting America a little less painful, more people would come―and spend money, and create jobs. Although the U.S. prides itself on openness, it's one of the world's least friendly nations in terms of the bureaucracy required to visit. It's time for that to change.

International tourism is booming worldwide: In 2012 a billion people crossed an international border for a holiday. But a shrinking proportion of those tourists are crossing American borders. According to World Bank data, the U.S. accounted for 8 percent of global tourism arrivals in 1995―a number that had fallen slightly to 7.3 percent by 2000. During that time, the U.S. share of global tourism receipts actually climbed to 21.2 percent from 19.4 percent.

Then came 2001 and its aftermath. At the nadir in 2006, the U.S. accounted for just 5.8 percent of international tourist arrivals and less than 15 percent of receipts. While the U.S. share of arrivals had recovered slightly by 2011, to 6.1 percent, its share of revenue remains at just 14.9 percent. That's a 16 percent decline in global tourism arrival share since 2000 and a 30 percent fall in global revenue share. If the U.S. still had the share of global arrivals it had in 2000, there would have been 12 million more international tourist visits to America in 2011 and $36 billion more in international tourism receipts. The windfall would be $80 billion more if those tourists still spent the same share of global expenditures as they did in 2000.

There are lots of reasons why the U.S. was likely to lose some share of the global tourism market during the past decade. Not least, there are more and more stable, tourist-friendly, and interesting places to visit that aren't in the U.S. Think Croatia, Chile, or Cambodia―and those are just the expanding tourist destinations that start with a “C.” But the lack of a long-term recovery from the post-Sept. 11 slump requires another explanation. And a recent paper by Robert Lawson of Southern Methodist University and Saurav Roychoudhury of Capital University provides one: onerous visa requirements.

Looking at 188 countries around the world, Lawson and Roychoudhury examined which ones require people to apply for a visa before they visit. Then they studied how many tourists travel from one country to another. Allowing for factors such as population, income, the size of bilateral trade, economic policies, a measure of democracy, and an indicator of world-class sites of cultural importance, they found that tougher visa requirements imposed on potential visitors from a given country are associated with considerably less tourism from that country. In short: Demanding a visa from a country's travelers in advance is associated with a 70 percent lower level of tourist entries than from a similar country where there is no visa requirement.

Foreign Tourists Line Up Overnight

International shoppers from around the world boosted sales on British high streets yesterday as Qataris, Chinese and Russians hit the shops – spending four times as much as people from the UK. As bargain-hunters began waiting in line in front of Selfridges, central London it was apparent the queue was made up of people from all around the world – particularly from China. Many had started queuing before dawn or even the night before to ensure they were first in line to snap up bargains on designer bags, clothes and homeware. Due to a tax levied on overseas designer goods in China many items are far more expensive than in the UK, meaning a bag from a luxury company such as Burberry or Mulberry could cost the Chinese four times as much in their home country. Chinese shoppers are the biggest spenders in the UK of all foreign nations.

However, shoppers from Middle Eastern nations top the charts for the most spent per transaction. Qataris spend the most on average – 1,714 ($2,814) per transaction – followed by those from the United Arab Emirates, who spend an average of 1,372 ($2,253). The Chinese spend 1,367 ($2,245) on average per transaction but are more likely to return to the tills with more goods, according to shopping tourism company Global Blue. Shoppers from Russia Santa opts for significant investor visa, Nigeria and India are also among the highest spenders, while the amount spent by Thai shoppers has risen 42 per cent year-on-year. Gordon Clark, UK manager of Global Blue, said "With international shoppers, particularly from China, Russia and Nigeria, spending on average four times more than domestic shoppers, retailers can look to boost Christmas trading by tailoring their in-store experience to these high-spending tourists."

Many high-end retailers such as Harrods have begun hiring Mandarin-speaking shop assistants to help Chinese customers, most of whom arrive in store with a specific list of goods they want to buy. Waiting in the Selfridges line was Wang Tianyi, 21, a student from China who is studying in Liverpool, and his girlfriend Sun Yeting, also 21, who is on holiday visiting him.
The couple had been queuing since 4am and said they hoped to pick up lots of gifts for their family. They planned to head straight for the luxury goods, Mr Tianyi said. He added: "We will buy the things we like." Wei Tuiao, 23, from China, said: "I have been into Selfridges this morning to get a Louis Vuitton handbag." Nevy Frega, 20, and Hassan Frega, 19, from Egypt, said: "We come to the sales every year, it is a great opportunity to buy lots of designer and high street clothes – we love British fashion." Sue West, retail director at Selfridges, said the Boxing Day sale is very important for its international customers. The Chinese market is hugely important to Selfridges. It’s one of the fastest growing international markets that we have.