A total of 245 tourism-related businesses including restaurants, hotels, public places of entertainment, and shopping centers have been approved BTA/VISA members for the first time by Beijing Tourism Administration and VISA International. Tourists visiting Beijing will soon be able to use their VISA cards like any city anywhere in the world.
By June of this year, VISA will be taken in some of the main tourist and downtown areas like Wangfujing shopping district, Dongdan and Xidan shopping centers, Dazhailan district at Qianmen Street, Chongwenmenwai Street, Changdian ? a folk art and cultural street, CBD areas in Chaoyang District, Financial Street, and Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park.
All the 3-star hotels and shopping centers in the main districts will take VISA by the end of the year, and every tourist hotel, restaurant and shop center by 2004.
Yu Changjiang, director of Beijing Tourism Administration, said, ?Foreign tourist arrivals to Beijing reached 3.1 million last year, with only US$3.10 billion spent on expenditure. In comparison, the foreign arrivals to New Delhi were less, but the expenditure was greater than Beijing. The reason given is that spending by credit card is more popular because in India they can and in Beijing they haven?t been able to until now.?
(China.org.cn by Liu Yuming, March 16, 2003)
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