Information from the air ticket office showed that the outbound tours in September are selling extremely well. Airlines offer discounts for tickets from Beijing to the United States, Canada and Japan. Tickets to Europe are already in short supply.

Compared with travels to Europe, trips from Beijing to North American countries and Japan do not see many tourists and airlines have to make discounts to lure customers.

The situation is totally different for tickets to Europe, however, as airlines offer a very limited number of discounted tickets. All the discounted tickets have already been sold out and customers find it difficult even to buy the ticket at whole price, unless they book it in advance.

More tourists are making outbound tours at present, which makes tickets to these places in short supply. Tickets to Paris and Frankfurt are in most need. The ticket price to Paris in September, for example, is set at 7,400 yuan while in the off-season, the price is only 3,000 yuan.

Visitors traveling to countries like the United States, Canada, Japan and North Korea can enjoy great discount if they book the ticket in advance.

A staff member from the booking department of yoee.com website told reporters that the one-way ticket from Beijing to Los Angeles at present cost 2,900 yuan and there were three types of prices for round trip tickets, 4,000 yuan, 4,400 yuan and 4,800 yuan.

The lowest price to Los Angeles was 3,000 yuan and for New York, the price was 3,500 yuan. Tickets to Japan and North Korea are also discounted.

(Chinanews.cn August 31, 2005)