As the tourism market becomes more sophisticated, tourists are being classified as sightseers, holiday and exhibition goers or incentive travellers, said Yu Changjiang, director of Beijing Tourism Bureau, at a workshop yesterday.

According Yu, about 3.5 million people, most coming from Europe and North America, attend incentive travel projects each year, with less than 1 percent of the total figure choosing China as a travel destination.

"Being too small to track, programmes on the Chinese mainland do not feature at all," said David Spain, president of Travel Trade Market Inc, when analyzing the top 10 destinations of US incentive travellers.

The untapped potential for the Chinese mainland is therefore enormous, with China able to capitalize heavily because of its splendid culture and good infrastructure, he added.

The top task for Chinese tourist authorities and travel agencies is to "get beyond the border" and to conduct promotions for China's tourism trade, echoed Issy Scher, international sales and marketing director of Kinsway Incentives, who was nominated as the bureau's incentive travel advisor at yesterday's workshop.

Incentive travel is a global management tool that uses an exceptional travel experience to motivate participants into increased levels of performance in support of organizational goals, according to Spain.

With the steady improvement in people's living standards, the tourism industry has become a new growth engine behind the capital's economy.

(China Daily February 18, 2003)