Fifty tourist sites, including the Forbidden City, Qomolangma
(known as Mt. Everest in the West) and the Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan,
have been chosen among "Top 50 Chinese Destinations for
Foreigners," according to the results of a public poll on
Saturday.
Jointly conducted by Beijing-based Global Travel
Newspaper and 31 metropolitan publications the poll started in
early March and collected about 2 million online responses, 28,000
paper votes and 213,000 text messages.
Wu Fei, secretary-general of the poll's organizing committee,
said about 170 sites in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and
municipalities were listed for voting. "All sites had passed
preliminary appraisal by local metropolitan newspapers."
The views of the organizing committee, which comprised
professionals in the travel industry and diplomats from 13
embassies in Beijing, also affected the outcome.
But questions have already been raised about the exercise with
some well-known tourists sites not listed. Among those not making
it into the the 'Top 50' are the Potala Palace in Tibet, the ancient Lijiang city in southwest
China's Yunnan Province and the West Lake in east
China's Zhejiang Province.
The organizing committee would not comment on this only saying
the results reflected the views of voters and provided "a valuable
reference to foreign tourists."
According to the China National Tourism Administration 120
million overseas visitors arrived in the country in 2005 and
earnings from these travelers surpassed US$29.3 billion.
(China Daily April 10, 2006)