In the early 1980s, China hammered out its policy of openness and opened its doors to the world, which had been closed for many years. Many foreigners came quickly and have been coming ever since. At the time, transportation capacity of the country was low, there was an extreme shortage of hotels, because of a shortage of personnel, there were not enough guides, and sightseeing buses were not air-conditioned.
Because of the situation, there was a limit to the number of foreign travelers the country could handle. Back then, things like market development were unnecessary because so many other basic things were needed.
Regardless of how popular places like Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Guilin and Guangzhou were, there weren't lodgings for travelers and it was hard to find a ticket back home.
Just to give you an example of the hotel situation： compared to the mere 203 hotels in the entire country in 1980, there were 5,200 as of 1997. What is more, all of them are stellar class based on international standards. There are 57 5-star hotels in 1/3 of China's provinces, and 157 4-star hotels in 2/3 of the provinces . There are also 895 3-star hotels throughout the country, just to show you level we are at today.
And, there are 1,339 2-star hotels and 276 1-star hotels. Hence, we have hotels now in all major tourist areas of the country.
To develop the tourist industry, personnel training is absolutely indispensable. In the beginning, China had few persons capable of hotel management. Then, guest houses were the only kind of lodging facilities in China. There was a public servant on each floor who had keys to all of the rooms . They could enter any room at any time regardless whether the guest was staying there or not. Guests were not given keys. Needless to stay, foreign travelers used to foreign hotels could not get accustomed to this kind of lodging system. To correct the problem, we sent many young persons overseas for training in modern hotel management. While having Chinese study on the one hand, management personnel and highly skilled technicians were brought in from abroad through business buy-ins and mergers.
In 1978, China established its first school of tourism. As of 1997. China has a university of tourism and tourism is taught as a faculty in 166 universities across the country. In addition to this, there are 42 schools specializing in tourism and 637 trade schools of higher level education. All together, there are some 200,000 students registered.
In the meantime, China's air transportation industry has seen remarkable development. From the I airline company that existed at first, the number has grown to 22. Most of the aircraft are from Boeing of the US. The current air transportation capacity completely satisfies today's market needs .
Highway construction has also boomed. Already, a total of 5,000 km have been completed. Regularly used routes by tourists, to name Beijing - Tianjin, Qingdao - Ji'nan, Shanghai - Nanjing, Shenyang - Dailan, and Hainan Island loop line, all have highways .
Railroad speeds have also been raised gradually and rail cars have continually been improved. For example, trains specifically for tourism have been put into service between Shanghai and Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningpo and Huanshan, from Beijing to Tianjing and Chengde, between Zhengzhou and Xi'an, and between Ji'nan and Qingdao.
Parallel to this, Iarge air-conditioned sightseeing buses have been introduced everywhere.
