The National Tourism Administration has mapped out a "country leisure plan" to boost domestic travel to offset the impact of the global financial crisis, said people.com.cn, citing Zhu Shanzhong, an administration official on Wednesday.

Speaking at the press conference of the 2008 China International Travel Mart, Zhu said: "The financial crisis has resulted in a sharp decline in inbound tourists. The National Tourism Administration will issue related measures to deal with the decline arising from the crisis, such as undertaking stronger promotions overseas. In order to boost domestic travel, the administration has worked out a 'country leisure plan' and submitted it to related departments."

The plan aims at boosting people's leisure travel to normal, secure and sustainable development through certain specific measures. Companies, for example, are encouraged to reward outstanding employees with travel packages and provide welfare travel packages to low-income employees. All these expenditures can be listed as the companies' operational costs. Study travel for students and old-age travel for retired people are also mentioned in the plan.

Affected by the global financial crisis, China's inbound tourists fell in the first nine months of this year and it is expected that the nation's tourism industry will be faced with a tough situation next year, especially for inbound tourism sector, Zhu said.

Inbound visits to China dropped 0.37 percent year on year to 97.3 million in January-September period, and the inbound tourism revenue declined 3.26 percent year on year to US$29.83 billion, according to statistics from the administration. In September alone, inbound visits to China plummeted 5.94 percent from the same period last year.

(China Daily November 20, 2008)