01/08/09, 01:59:43 UTC

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China expanding consular services to meet demand from rising outbound tourism

iht.com

BEIJING: China's Foreign Ministry is doubling the number of officers assigned to help out Chinese tourists running into scrapes overseas.

"The number of cases in which Chinese citizens get in trouble abroad has exceeded 30,000 a year," the ministry's head of consular affairs, Wei Wei, was quoted as saying in Wednesday's China Daily newspaper.

Wei's office will grow from 10 to 20 staff members, with further expansion in the future, the paper said.

Numbers of Chinese traveling abroad each year are growing by double digit percentages, reaching more than 34 million last year. More than 675,000 Chinese citizens also live overseas, underscoring the need for more resources and better information on how to stay safe and what to do in a crisis.

Hoping to meet that need, Wei's department this week began distributing copies of a handbook on advice and information for travelers.

Travelers are told to avoid drawing attention to themselves, respect local customs, and keep a wary eye on strangers.

"Keep peaceful in public places, don't talk loudly and avoid sticking out," the guidelines said. "Don't get involved in other people's quarrels in public places."

Travelers were told to respect local laws.

"When your legal rights are violated, avoid making things worse and resolve the problem through upright channels, not through extortion or other illegal methods," they said.

Rising wealth among urbanites and looser restrictions on passports have sparked a boom in numbers of Chinese traveling overseas, now expected to hit 100 million annually by 2020.

That has made Chinese tourists the target of criminals and terrorists, with dozens of mainland citizens kidnapped or attacked by militants in Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Pakistan over the past year. At least 10 were killed.

Iran last week said it had detained two Chinese men on spying charges for photographing and recording video tape of a military complex in Arak city.

That prompted a Chinese Foreign Ministry warning not to take pictures in Iran outside of "obviously signed tourist areas."

 Printable Version  | published Aug 22, 2007