A senior Hainan official has vowed to kickstart tourism to the disputed Xisha Islands in the west of South China Sea this year, according to the Xinhua News Agency. more ›

For those who have the rare opportunity, the train linking Dandong in China to Pyongyang in North Korea offers a unique glimpse of the most closed country in the world. [AFP] more ›

Starting this August, Singapore Airlines' long-haul budget subsidiary Scoot (now also known by its Mandarin name Ku Hang 酷航 which literally means "Cool Airlines") will launch four nonstop flights a week between Singapore and Tianjin, and by the end of 2012, the low-cost airline will run trips to and from a total of five Chinese cities. more ›

“The ardent yearning for leader Kim Jong Il has inspired us to make fresh innovations in the project. We have been devoting all our efforts to finishing the project in time, even under the strained situation caused by the Lee Myung Bak regime of south Korea.” more ›

Shanghai is currently constructing its first open-air hot springs resort in Songjiang district, a 500 million RMB project geared to immerse visitors in both nature and culture. Shanghai Daily reports: more ›

Seriously, who needs documentaries these days when a scroll-length infographic gets the job done? US-China Today (a website affiliated with the University of Southern California's US-China Institute) has put together some decent data on international tourists traveling to China, as well as info on China's tourists traveling abroad. more ›

The ferry between Nagasaki and Shanghai that we have been oh-so-excited about officially launched yesterday. more ›

Wearing a suit, sprayed with perfume and topped with a dyed red mohawk, Zhou Fei (周飞) has made himself an online celebrity as "the most fashionable beggar in China." more ›

Ah the sweetness of transient traveling, the romance of seeing the world. This animated clip comes courtesy of students from the Art and Design Academy of the Zhejiang Science and Technology University, who do a decent job of describing the experience and poetry of the peripatetic lifestyle. Time, memory, sorrow and the accumulated baggage of life: it's all in there! more ›

US ambassador to China Gary Locke has announced a new interview waiver pilot program that is expected to make it easier for Chinese nationals to visit the United States. Under the new program, consular officers will have the power to waive interviews for some qualified non-immigrant applicants who are renewing their visa within 48 months of expiration of their previously held visa. more ›

Chinese high rollers have transformed Macau and Singapore into two of the world's top gambling destinations. Now, Australia wants a slice of that market too. Peter Gotting of Australia Network News reports. more ›

The Hukou Waterfall, China's second largest waterfall, located on the border of Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, are an absolutely spectacular sight in winter to behold. more ›

Chinese nationals accounted for the largest share of luxury goods sales in overseas markets during the month of January, with total sales of approximately $7.2 billion USD recently. The amount sees the a nearly 30 percent increase from the same period last year, when Chinese on vacation spent $5.6 billion USD on luxury items. more ›

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A video of a quarrel between mainland tourists caught snacking on a Hong Kong subway train with local passengers has burnt up the internets in both Hong Kong and the mainland. Watch a Hong Kong news report with English subtitles after the jump... more ›

The 56-year-old traveler, whose identity has not been released by authorities, had been traveling with her sister, who resides in the US, when the $450 million-dollar ship, carrying upwards of 4,200 passengers and crew members, collided with a reef off the Tuscan coast, since claiming the lives of at least six people, while at least 29 people are still missing, according to foreign media reports. more ›

Li Senlin (李森林) and his friend Yuan Hui (袁辉) have chosen to hike back home for the Spring Festival. The two university students plan to spend 8 days covering 400 kilometers from Suzhou, where their universities locate, to their hometown Yancheng. more ›

Shot by Ricardo Mendialdua in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. more ›

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"You know, quite a lot of mainland tourists now, more than 2.6 million, have come to Taiwan. They have done a lot of consumption in Taiwan, and spurred a tourism boom. At the same time, moreover, they have also got a sense of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom. A lot of them didn’t go out during the evening. Instead, they lock themselves up in their hotel rooms, watching the political talk shows to see our people criticizing their president. [laughter] Well, that’s democracy. That’s, you know, freedom of expression. But after a while, they began to ask why they couldn’t do the same when they go home? So, this is a very powerful question, and gradually they will make some changes, not only in our cross-strait relations, but also in their own internal system." more ›

Another day, another group of angry Chinese travellers causing a commotion somewhere in the world. This time, a group of tourists from Shanghai, Sichuan and Shenzhen staged a protest at Singapore's Changi Airport after a lengthy delay of their Hong Kong Airlines flight. more ›

An uproar broke out earlier this week in the Canadian province of British Columbia when a brochure sent by the provincial government to business owners entitled "How to Market Your Business to China" warned against promotions involving gay tourism, casinos or gambling. more ›

Air China, the world's largest carrier by market capitalisation and also the world's most profitable airline, begins inflight wifi trials on a Boeing 737-800 flight departing from the Beijing Capital Airport tomorrow. As soon as it receives approval from regulators, it will begin rolling out the service starting from its domestic flights. And the best part of it all is, they're not looking to charge us a single cent for it! more ›

When news first sprung up about the planned resumption of the Shanghai-Nagasake ferry, it was painted more as a bargain boat designed to get you there and back on the cheap. Which made the unveiling of a new(ish) cruise ship on the route's inaugural run last weekend very exciting indeed. Beginning in January, for only around 800RMB (one way) you can travel over to Nagasaki on a second-hand Greek cruise ship called the Ocean Rose. more ›

A total of 21 floats and 30 performer teams enthralled crowds in a massive parade last Saturday on Huaihai Middle Road to kick off this year's Shanghai Tourism Festival. Featuring the usual flotilla of garish floats, happy minorities and a number of imported acts from Japan, Brazil, Finland, Indonesia and elsewhere, the parade's manufactured carnivalesque atmosphere drew a crowd of tens of thousands. more ›

Anthony Tao, who writes over at the Heart of Beijing blog, has just returned to China from North Korea, and he has some amazing footage from this year's mass games. more ›

Everything about it screams BACKWARD, but it's still luxurious by North Korean standards. Over the weekend, 130 Chinese tourists and journalists boarded the 39-year-old Man Gyong Bong, a former cargo ship that's just been recently renovated and remade to become the DPRK's very first cruise ship. more ›

And by the looks of it, it's going to be pretty effing cheap too! Plans to resume the ferry after a 30-year hiatus were announced this week in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911, because apparently Sun Yat-sen was real tight with a couple of Japanese friends from over there. more ›

Taiwan's Tourism Bureau has launched a new international marketing campaign that aims to lure more travellers to the island even as it attracted a record number of visitors last year. The full 16 minute film, "Time for Taiwan - My Beautiful Island" aims to showcase all of the island's culture and natural beauty and is targeted at four main categories of travellers -- backpackers, women, families and elderly couples. Since it was launched about a month ago, the video has been seen close to half a million times on Youtube. The masterminds behind the film, Johnason Lo and Michael Fimognari, were tasked with breaking the mould of conventional marketing campaigns employed by other tourism bureaus, and we think to a large extent, they have succeeded in what they set out to do. more ›