Once it was assumed that when traditionally frugal Chinese families could afford to travel the world, they would select inexpensive routes with more overseas destinations.

But like other tourist markets, the country has a wealthy minority that wants to enjoy more leisure or luxurious trips in European countries since Chinese travel agencies were approved to organize tour groups to 26 countries there on September 1.

Quite a number of the tourists are not very satisfied with sightseeing trips that pay more attention to the number of EU countries than the quality of the tour. The feel of these tours is similar to tours of government officials, with cursory travel in dozens of countries.

Yang Li, a white-collar employee of a state-owned foreign trade company in Beijing, and her 12-year-old daughter were members of the first Europe Tour group.

Yang hoped the journey would give her daughter a deep impression about Europe and its culture.

"I like the leisure lifestyle and tranquil environment at a small town in Switzerland, but the journey schedule in France and Italy was arranged too tightly for me to enjoy local landscapes and historical relics," Yang said.

"Next time, we will take a more relaxing way to understand local people's daily life and visit more museums, cathedrals and other sightseeing spots," Yang said.

As the fresh batch of visitors to EU countries, Chinese families are now hoping travel agencies improve services, including destination arrangements, accommodation and catering, said Li Ming, director of the Outbound Business of China International Travel Service, the largest travel agency in China.

In general, most of the visitors to Europe complained the food was not enough as they prefer Chinese restaurants which did not know how to cook food for Chinese people. At the same time, the level of consumption in Europe is much higher than that in China, said Beijing Morning Post.

"In September, our company organized dozens of tour groups consisting of about 1,000 visitors. Most of them are professors, medical doctors, businessmen and retired officials, who have not complained about the food," Li said.

It costs between 12,000 yuan (US$1,451) and 17,000 yuan (US$2,055) to tour Europe depending on the level of the group.

"In the week-long National Day holidays, from October 1 to 7, we also have about 500 guests attending the Europe Tour we prepared for them three months ago," Li said.

Because of strict and tedious formalities to get EU visas, any Chinese travel service has to cross several official thresholds for every tourist until to complete all the procedures.

The headache for travel services in charge of Europe tours is that human trafficking gangs may use the tour group as a channel for illegal entry into the continent, said Li.

If a member of the tour group stays in the EU illegally, the embassy of EU country may penalize the travel agency that organizes the tour. That forces the travel agency to collect deposits of 50,000 yuan (US$6,046) from each tourist to diminish its economic losses, Li said.

In China, attitudes towards tourism have changed dramatically from just two decades ago, when most of the population made a living without enough to eat and wear.

Now, as Chinese citizens travel more, they are broadening not only their minds but also the range of high-quality products or luxury goods they come into contact with.

Usually, many foreign people finds that Chinese tourists' favorite activity seems to be shopping once they are abroad for most of them always worry about their family members and relatives at home.

On the other, the reason why many Chinese people select European Union countries as their destinations is that they hope to learn about places where their children may get a higher education, Li said.

These factors kindle the flames of Europe tours in some Chinese people's heart.

And, as in the rest of China's outbound tourism market, is causing competition among travel agencies.

"The travel services can make a profit of about 20 percent from each tourist to Europe, much higher than those to Southeast Asia and neighboring countries," Li said.

In the first half of this year, about 13,33 million Chinese people traveled abroad, among which 10.57 million traveled for private business, up 87 per cent and 136 percent over the same period of 2003, said He Guangwei, chairman of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).

At present, China has signed authorized destination status (ADS) agreements with 26 EU countries including Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland.

"The outbound tourism to the EU will enhance friendship and understanding between China and Europe as well as promote bilateral exchanges in economy, trade, science and culture," He said.

Besides 26 EU members, China has signed authorized destination status (ADS) agreements with 28 countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

Chinese tourists have more choices, and thus more interest in travel.

A survey conducted by the World Tourism Organization shows that China is among the top 10 countries in terms of out-of-border tourism consumption.

From 1994 to 2003, the total number of Chinese traveling abroad reached nearly 100 million, up almost 14 percent year-on-year.

However, inbound tourism was not as optimistic outbound tourism between January to June this year.

During the six months, the number of overseas participants in tour groups to China was only 1.3 million, down 15 percent over the same period of 2002, according to the statistics from the CNTA.

The decrease was a result of fierce competition in the international market and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the spring of 2003, which scared many overseas travel agencies and tourists. Weak tourism promotion in other countries also played a factor, said He.

(China Daily October 4, 2004)