Shanghai's Popular Air Touring

Touring by air has recently become popular with Shanghai residents.

Air tickets are hot commodities, and difficult to obtain.

Since September last year, every day almost 10 000 Shanghai citizens have been taking excursions, and approximately 40 percent of them travel by air.

Air tickets from Shanghai to Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Xiamen, Kunming, Guangzhou and Haikou have to be reserved from three days to a week in advance.

A joint venture garment company in west Shanghai recently organized a tourist group of 200 people to Beijing. They got the Shanghai Pacific Travel Service to charter a plane for their trip from the Shanghai Airlines.

A foreign-founded bank organized its Chinese staff and their families to visit Kunming and Xishuangbanna. They chartered two flights from the Shanghai Airlines. Seventy percent of the cost was covered by the bank and 30 percent by individuals.

A group of families totaling 300 people from a Shanghai neighborhood embarked on a Guangzhou trip by chartering a round-trip flight from the East Airlines.

More than 400 staff members from a large shopping center in Shanghai have visited Nanjing, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Wuhan, the Three Gorges and other destinations by air for holidays at their own expense since September last year.

To cope with the situation, various large air companies in Shanghai have arranged tourist flights on their main routes. Some air companies in other provinces have established services for holidays for Shanghai residents during the peak tourist season.

Since May 1st last year, Shanghai's tourism has almost doubled. The increase is due to rising living standards, new consumption concepts and convenient and comfortable transportation, according to the city's tourist officials.

They also claim that they expect the business to continue expanding in the near future.