The number of foreign tourists visiting China surpassed 109 million in 2004, a new record.

Inbound tourism brought in US$25.7 billion in foreign exchange revenue, almost half the country’s 2004 total tourism revenue of 471 billion yuan (US$57 billion), citing newly released government statistics.

Visitors from Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States topped the list of foreign tourists, it said.

The figures were a sharp rebound from 2003, when an outbreak of potentially fatal SARS kept many foreign tourists away from much of Asia. Between 1998 and 2002, the number of visitors to China jumped by 54 percent to 97.9 million.

Meanwhile, the number of Chinese traveling overseas rose sharply as rules restricting trips abroad eased, the report said.

It said 28.9 million Chinese went abroad last year, with only 5.9 million doing so for business purposes.

The number of Chinese traveling overseas for “private reasons” jumped 55 percent over the year before to 13 million, the report said.

(Shenzhen Daily January 24, 2005)