China is considering raising standards of travel agencies, said sources from the country's tourism industry regulator.

Zhang Xiqin, deputy director of the National Tourism Administration, said his administration was planning to revise the current regulations regarding management of travel agencies.

"The requirements to obtain a travel agency license might be more stringent in the revised document in order to curb vicious competition among travel agencies and promote the formation of big tour wholesalers," said Zhang, who didn't elaborate.

Zhang was in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, attending a conference on rewarding leading Chinese travel agencies that helped expand domestic and overseas tourism last year.

There are now 16,000 travel agencies in the Chinese mainland. They had earnings of 110 billion yuan (about US$13.75 billion) last year.

The country had 120 million overseas tourist arrivals and another 1.2 billion domestic tourist arrivals last year but only 10 percent were handled by the country's travel agencies.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2006)