Travel News
Shanghai Daily March 7, 2007
Some Shanghai travel agencies have started setting up tours for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and the earliest travel group is expected to head to the capital at the end of this year.
Spring International Travel Service said it is now setting up an itinerary for the Olympic tours and tour groups to Beijing before the Game's curtain rises, which includes stops to the stadiums and other facilities newly built for the Games.
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games officially kicks off from August 8 to 24 next year.
read more »
March 7, 2007
United Airlines (UA) will launch a daily non-stop air route from Beijing to Washington DC on March 29.
It will be the fifth air route operated by UA between China and the United States. The existing four routes are the Beijing-Chicago, Beijing-San Francisco, Shanghai-Chicago and Shanghai-San Francisco routes.
“The new air route will give people more choices when they want to fly to Beijing to watch the Olympic Games next year,” Mark Schwab, UA’s Vice President of the Pacific division, said.
Sidney Kwok, general manager of UA China Operation, said they would use Boeing 747-400 planes to fly the new air route, and in late March, also on the Shanghai-Chicago route.
"It means UA's air passenger seats in China will go up by 32 percent," said Kwok.
A new airport will be built at the source of three main Chinese rivers, the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers in northwest China, to boost economic development in this underdeveloped area, according to local sources.
The airport will be built at Shangbatang, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in southwestern Qinghai Province, with an estimated cost of 478 million yuan (US$61 million).
The airport will have a 3,800-meter-long runway and a 1,600-square-meter terminal building capable of handling 80,000 passengers by 2015.
read more »
March 6,2007
Entrance tickets to Potala Palace sold like hot cakes in railway-linked Tibet last year, but political advisors and legislators here worry that more tourists will be disappointed by scant ticket supplies.
Tourism to Tibet is soaring with the operation of the new railway line which opened last July, running from Xining in northwest China to Lhasa in southwest China.
As the train races across the Lhasa Bridge, Potala Palace can be clearly seen in the background. But it has become harder to get into the sacred complex as only a limited number of entrance tickets are available each day, said Ngoezhub Puncog, who is attending the annual session of China’s top political advisory body, which opened on Saturday.
read more »
Xinhua News Agency, Mar.4,2007
Heavy snowfall in many parts of north China on Saturday night and Sunday caused some airports to close temporarily and affected highway traffic with many Chinese on the way home after their Spring Festival holidays.
About 1,000 passengers were stranded at Taoxian International Airport in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, when it closed at 8 a.m. Sunday in heavy snow.
By 10 a.m., five outbound and 20 inbound flights had been delayed, with the airport still closed as snow continued to fall, airport sources said.
Nine out of 11 expressways in the province have been closed, according to provincial authorities. Only certain stretches of two expressways were still open.
read more »
