Travel China Planner

To attract 30 million tourists to visit Japan in 2010, the Japanese government is considering further easing of restrictions on visas for Chinese tourists.

The Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reports that specific measures include making changes to the annual income limits and issuing multiple-entry visas to Chinese tourists.

From March 2008, Japan began to issue visas to Chinese tourists in the form of “family tour group” for two or three people. In July 2009, Japan made personal tourist visas available to Chinese citizens. However, because of restrictions such as a minimum annual income CNY250,000, only 6,000 personal tourist visas had been issued by the end of November 2009, while 179,000 visas had been issued to tour groups.

InterContinental Hotel Group will open its first Hotel Indigo in Asia Pacific in May 2010 at Shiliupu Dock at the southern end of the Bund in Shanghai.

IHG’s first lifestyle boutique hotel brand in the region, Hotel Indigo is intended to offer guests a less formal and more individual hotel experience than the other upscale brands in IHG’s portfolio — while retaining the overall IHG brand image. IHG says the brand is a new concept for the Group, and targets upscale travelers who seek an experience that incorporates local historic, cultural and natural elements. feel at home.

Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund is located directly on the Huangpu River front, and its design reflects the proximity of the river and dock.

According to Keith Barr, the managing director of IHG Greater China, boutique properties are becoming increasingly popular within the region. However there is an inconsistency in the standards of the ’boutique’ offerings available and so IHG see a huge opportunity for Hotel Indigo with the reassurance and consistent quality that comes from staying at a property that is managed by an international group.  Barr added that it provides property owners with an attractive proposition to co-create a distinct property that benefits from a high returns model.

Bruce Ryde, the general manager of the hotel, commented that with its unique location on the river front and focus on local creativity and bespoke design, Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund would offer visitors to Shanghai something quite different, creating a more varied environment that represents the diversity and very best of old and new Shanghai.

The hotel features 182 rooms, including 21 River View Suites and two Garden Terrace Suites with private terraces. All rooms feature complimentary Wi-Fi, Internet telephone, a 42-inch flat screen TV with DVD, a Bose music sound system, an iron and ironing board, and a ‘laptop’ safe.

For impromptu meetings the hotel offers the Sanctuary with dedicated relaxation areas, work spaces and social corners, refreshments and a cafe menu, with complimentary Internet access available throughout the area and wider hotel, while dedicated work stations and seating areas provide more comfortable business spaces.

For the active, the hotel also features a gym using the latest equipment, with private tai-chi and yoga classes available on request and a glass fronted infinity swimming pool situated on the seventh floor overlooking the Huangpu river.

After launching a new Chinese website in the first half of 2009, Germany-based Hotel Reservation Service recently announced that it would set up offices in Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Chengdu.

Stanley Wang, the managing director of Hotel Reservation Service Asia Pacific, told local media that HRS.cn would expand China’s online travel market by speeding up its roll-out in China. The five offices are intended to offer better services to HRS’s hotel partners and travelers in these cities and their neighborhood.

HRS has a high opinion of the scope for development of online travel in China. Statistics show only 5% of Chinese netizens would book hotels online via Internet while the number in the US is 55%. Wang believes that online hotel reservation services will have a huge potential in China along with the development of China’s Internet industry.

As well as five offices in China, HRS will also establish offices in Tokyo, Singapore, and Bangkok to expand the online travel market in Asia Pacific region.

Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, an online game company in China, has initiated a project named Shanda Tourism and plans to set up a tourism website to integrate its online and offline resources.

Shanda Tourism is now just a project under Shanda’s project investment center, but it will certainly be operated independently, according to media reports. Analysts figure that Shanda Tourism will be different from Ctrip.com, which means it will focus more on online community but not tickets or travel information.

Shanda Interactive has already launched its experiments in the tourism industry. For example, it has invested CNY1 billion to set up a theme park in Wuxi, and it is also planning to set up a real scenic area in Long Chuan Gorge in Zhejiang featuring one of its online games Aion. Shanda Tourism is considered a way to serve the theme parks and scenic areas that Shanda Interactive has invested in.

News from Tianjin Tourism Department is that Tianjin will build a new payment system for tour guides in 2010.

At present, there are two kinds of tour guides in Tianjin, full-time ones (20%) and part-time ones (80%). Full-time tour guides sign labor contracts with their employers and their payment consists of salary, insurance, and bonus subsidies. On the other hand there is no labor contract between part-time tour guides and travel agencies — they are paid based on the tour cost of the tour group they lead. As a result of this, many unprofessional part-time tour guides choose to cheat tourists or create problems on a tour to the guides economic benefit.

With the launch of the new tour guide payment system, it is expected that the tour guide industry will be gradually regulated and the interests of tour guides will be better protected so their interactions with tourists will be more harmonious.

So far, Tianjin has made 2010 the year for improving travel service quality. To Achieve this the municipal tourism department will work with the parties concerned to carry out reforms on the payment of tour guides. The new payment system is expected to focus on a basic salary and service fee with tour cost related subsidies for tour guides.