Story highlights
China VP Wang says the country needs to project a better image of its tourists
Chinese are now the world's highest spending tourists
Growth has also spurned backlash against mainland tourists
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang has called on his nation’s tourists to improve their behavior, stressing it was important to project a “good image of Chinese tourists,” official state media outlet Xinhua reported.
Xinhua reported on Thursday that Wang made the remarks during a State Council teleconference on the implementation of the country’s new Tourism Law.
The law, adopted in April, is to take effect October 1. It includes measures aimed at addressing issues like unfair competition, price hikes and forced goods purchases that Xinhua said plague the industry.
Wang also said it was important develop the tourism sector into a key part of China’s economy.
In a matter of just a decade or so, Chinese tourists have gone from being relatively rare outside of Asia to becoming the most important market in global tourism, surpassing American and German travelers in 2012 as the world’s top international spenders, with a record $102 billion shelled out on the road.
With the growth has come a backlash against Chinese tourist in some sectors of the travel industry, particularly Hong Kong.
There, mainland Chinese tourists face harsh resentment for a number of issues. Clashes between locals and tourists on public transportation and in restaurants have been caught on video, rapidly gone viral on the Internet and are regular press fodder.