Hong Kong Travel Agency To Open Branch In Changsha

According to Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, the China mainland travel agency market will open to Hong Kong and Macau businesses by 2008.

Hong Kong Wing On Travel Service Limited has reportedly initially invested about HK$1 million in Changsha to set up its wholly owned travel agency, scheduled to open in January 2008.

Liu Zhiming, vice director of Hunan Provincial Tourism Bureau, says that after this branch travel agency is established they expect to reach at least 20,000 tourists from or via Hong Kong and Macau areas to Hunan each year. And he said that this also will bring advanced management ideas, service modes, and global customer resources to Hunan.

Hunan and Hong Kong have cooperated with each other frequently in recent years. For the first nine months of 2007, there are 858,600 inbound tourists to Hunan, of which tourists from Hong Kong and Macau accounted for 20% with year-on-year growth rate of 30%.

Liu said Hunan currently has about 500 travel agencies and most are quite small.