China will receive more than 180 million tourists in 2020, ranking top among countries in international tourist arrivals, the head of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) said on July 5 in Manzanillo, Mexico.
In an interview with Xinhua, WTO Secretary General Francesco Frangialli said China is now in a favorable situation, and is one of the five best destinations in the world.
Frangalli was here for the second ministerial tourism meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) which ended Friday.
He predicted that China would become the most favored destination by 2020 ahead of France and the United States.
According to WTO figures in June, China ranked fifth in its tourist arrivals, which hit 33.2 million in 2001, up 6.2 percent from 2000. This came when an economic slowdown in North American and European countries, the major sources of international tourists, left an impact on world tourism.
As the WTO figures indicated, tourist arrivals during the September-December period last year dropped by nearly 24 percent in South Asia, 20 percent in the Americas and 11 percent in the Middle East.
(People's Daily July 7, 2002)
