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Japan the 1st choice for Shanghai tourists

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-09 14:15

SHANGHAI -- Japan has replaced Thailand as the first-choice destination for outbound tourism from Shanghai, local tourism authorities confirmed Thursday.

Japan ranked first among top 10 destinations for outbound tourism from Shanghai in 2008. The nation received 105,500 visits from the Chinese city last year, up 34.21 percent on the previous year.

The visits from Shanghai to Japan were six times the 2004 figure of 15,800.

Xu Fan, a Shanghai-based expert with the World Tourism Organization of the United Nations, attributed the fast growth to Japan's business promotion efforts, quality services by Japan's tourism sector and price cuts.

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Last year, the unstable political climate in Thailand, which had been the first choice for Shanghai's outbound tourism for years, helped drive down visits from Shanghai.

Last winter, a popular Chinese big-screen romance, If You Are the One, partly set in Hokkaid, Japan, also sparked interest in travel to northern Japan.

Xu said last year travel agencies on the Yangtze River Delta arranged outbound tourism for 1.496 million people, up 8 percent year-on-year. The total included more than 730,000 people from Shanghai.

The Delta accounted for 14 percent of China's outbound tourists in 2007, up from 3.35 percent in 1996, according to Xu.