As spring nears, some of the world's popular tourism destinations have been promoting themselves in China, in the hope of attracting more Chinese tourists and setting up closer ties with China's tourism circle.

Nearly 20 tourism companies from northern Europe were in Beijing as the 2003 tourism season nears. Denmark, Norway and Sweden promoted their beautiful scenery and way of living.

"Chinese people are familiar with Andersen's fairy tales, the Nobel prize, Ericsson and Nokia mobiles," said Ole Lonsmann Poulsen, the Danish ambassador to China. "I hope one day they can visit the Danish seaside, Norwegian mountains and Swedish forest."

The north European countries have not yet gained the authorized destination status (ADS) to make it easier for Chinese tourists to visit, but this did not stop their promotions in China.

Almost at the same time as these European promotions, a man named Amran took office as a tourism official for Malaysia, a country also wanting to attract more tourists.

Malaysia will offer Chinese tourists tropical scenery, tasty fruit and a thriving rain forest with a long history, said Majid Bin Khan, Malaysian ambassador to China.

Since Malaysia gained ADS status, millions of Chinese tourists have visited the country, including tourists and business people. Over 550,000 Chinese people visited last year alone, up 23 percent compared with the previous year, making China the southeast Asian nation's fourth largest tourism source for Malaysia.

Swiss tourism operators came on their sixth trip to China. Composed of 21 institutions from Switzerland, they planned to launch workshops in six cities within one week.

In 2002, Chinese people spent nearly 120,000 overnight stays in Switzerland, up 25 percent over the previous year, said Federico Sommaruga, director of Southeast Asia and Australia for Switzerland Tourism.

Sommaruga said Switzerland was the first European nation to apply for ADS and the first European nation to open an office in China.

He said he believed that as China quickened its pace of opening up, Chinese tourists could conveniently visit the beautiful and rich European nation soon.

This was an especially busy spring season with various nations promoting among Chinese cities to get a piece of China's prosperous outbound tourism.

(People's Daily March 7, 2003)