Government Tourism Investment

By china tour on 2009-6-16 7:22:00 | China Travel News

China Government adds to tourists investment
Despite these positive changes, there is plenty of room for improvement. Government units still have a tendency to see tourists as a resource to be exploited rather than trying to help them. For example, the municipal governments of both Tianjin and Shanghai charge a fee of $2.50-$3.00 for inbound cars with out-of-city plates. Recently, in a well-publicized case, a Chinese lawyer who was required to pay this charge went to court to try to get his money back, but his claim was denied in court, a disappointment for the Chinese public.
Internal movement controls left over from a more restrictive era also continue to impede tourism. A good example is the fence surrounding the special economic zone (SEZ) of Shenzhen, intended to prevent peasants from entering the zone without permission. The construction of the fence was one of the very first acts undertaken by the government after the SEZ was established in 1980; its construction cost 130 million yuan (equivalent to US$16.2 million today), which was nearly the total amount of the income contribution by Guangdong province to the central government in that year.

Passing through the fence required a special permit costing 30 yuan, about a month's salary for a typical worker at the time. The fee was paid by hundreds of millions of Chinese visitors, providing a very high return on the government's investment. But how many more visitors might have come had the annoyance of the permit and fee not existed will never be known.
The author once asked a government official why the authorities created so many hurdles for people. He replied: "Well, it is just the way for the government to provide an effective management for the interest of society. For example, if you don't stop rural people from seeking employment in the cities, very soon all cities would be filled with rural migrants."
But the reality is that at least 160 million rural workers already work in the cities and they are among the biggest contributors for China's progress. For this, the official replied, "It [could] become very chaotic if the government controls [movements] less." But the real problem is that all the obvious government intrusions are presented as modern management.