Impacts of Accession to WTO on China's Travel Industry

Abstract

China's accession to WTO will inevitably bring her a big change in many fields. However, this big event has not aroused people's awareness in China's travel industry until recently, when China decides to allow foreign-invested travel companies into China's travel market. This study is a descriptive study, which intends to explore and discuss the impacts WTO is to bring to China's travel industry. A questionnaire survey and personal interviews were conducted in China's leading travel companies. Results of the survey and discussions indicate that challenges as well as opportunities may be concomitantly faced by China's travel industry. Challenges may be such as leakage of professional staff, diminishing market share owned by state-owned travel companies, pressure of price reduction, and loss of international clients, etc. Opportunities may include facilitating the reform in China's travel industry, widening up China's travel marketing distribution channels and strengthening the promotion of China's tour products in the international market. In order to sustain the WTO challenges, it is suggested that China's travel industry needs to take some critical measures, such as renovating outdated enterprise systems and streamlining the overloaded staff team.