China will enter the top 10 chart of sources of tourists for the United States by 2007, a US tourism official said in Shanghai on Saturday.

Tourism observers have noticed that Chinese tourists were constituting a growing part in the market, although Europe and Japan are still the major sources, said Mark A Turner, a tourism official with the US Embassy to China, at the China International Travel Mart in Shanghai on Saturday.

More than 50 US tourism companies and agencies have come to the fair to woo Chinese sightseers.

China is currently the 12th largest tourist source for the United States. The number of Chinese tourists to the country surged 24 percent last year.

Turner said that the US embassy had begun a pilot program which offers interview appointments through seven qualified travel agencies in a bid to speed up the visa application process.

The program may be extended to consulates in Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenyang and Guangzhou if it goes well in the Chinese capital, Turner said.

China and the United States have made progress in negotiations on making the United States a destination for Chinese tourists, Shao Qiwei, director of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), said in Los Angeles last September.

According to Shao, China registered 30 million overseas travels last year, with only 530,000 to the United States. Last year, 1.56 million Americans visited China, according to the CNTA.

"With the boom in the economy and healthy development of Sino-US ties, more Chinese tourists are hoping to travel to the United States," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2006)