2008 was supposed to be a banner tourism year for the China. Remember the Olympics? They were in August, yet, according to the Wall Street Journal (1/9/09), the year ended with an overall drop of two million visitors.
2008 marked the first decline in visitors to China since the 2003 SARS scare.
China's National Tourism Administration reported that there were 130 million inbound travelers in 2008.
This hasn't slowed down the Walt Disney Company's bid to build Shanghai Disneyland, a $3.59 billion theme park. Disney is actually counting on drawing visitors from mainland China itself. (Disney currently operates parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong).
The deal is far from done. China's central government needs to approve the Shanghai proposal and that can take some time. The government may be tempted by the 50,000 new jobs the park could create as China focuses its economic recovery on growing markets within their borders.
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Wall Street Journal, 1/9/09 and 1/10/09.
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