Xiamen tourism revenue surpasses 100b yuan in 2017

Xiamen's tourism industry maintained double-digit revenue growth in 2017 to top 100 billion yuan for the first time, Xiamen Daily reported on Feb 2, citing statistics from local tourism authorities.

The tourism revenue in the city rose to 116.85 billion yuan ($18.56 billion) last year, up 20.68 percent year-on-year, according to the Xiamen Tourism Development Committee.

Visitor arrivals totaled 78.3 million in 2017, including 3.86 million foreign visitors, who were predominantly from the countries of North America and Southeast Asia as well as those neighboring China such as Japan and South Korea.

Overnight foreign visitors were mainly from Japan, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, the Philippines, Germany, Indonesia, Canada and Australia, which together accounted for 71.5 percent of the total.

The number of overnight visitors to the city from South Korea, the Philippines and Germany showed the fastest rate of increase in 2017.

Comfortable accommodation is a key factor responsible for the growth, according to local authorities. Data from the Xiamen Tourism Quality Supervision Bureau shows that roughly 75 percent of high star-rated hotels (four-star or above) received no complaints in 2017.

Xiamen, dubbed the "Garden on the Sea", is a city located in Southeast China's Fujian province and one of most popular tourism destinations in the country.

Tourists walk down a street on Gulang Island, a renowned scenic attraction in Xiamen, Fujian province. [Photo/VCG]