Home 禄 Feature 禄 News Feature
Exotic holidays show off China鈥檚 wild side
Print Edition
A series of photos taken in Antarctica have recently caused some buzz on the Internet. The pictures show some Chinese tourists in wedding dresses pose among penguins.
The photos have given light to the rapidly increasing number of Chinese tourists who visit less common or previously unavailable destinations. In the past three to five years, many countries have simplified the visa process for Chinese and overseas trips have become more affordable.
Antarctica is one of the most popular destinations among those who want adventure and rarity. An organized trip from China lasting about two weeks costs about 100,000 yuan (US$15,990) per person.
Statistics from the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) shows the number of Chinese tourists had increased from less than 40 in 2003 to more than 3,000 in 2013. About 9 percent of all tourists visiting Antarctic are from China, ranking third after the United States and Australia.
The number of Chinese people who have visited the Arctic has also grown dramatically.
“We design the routes based on demand,” HHtravel, an agency targeting high-end travelers, tells Shanghai Daily. “So a lot of them are destinations that are hard to reach for ordinary travelers, places that are particularly far from China, or are especially costly to reach such as the South American or East African countries or some islands.
“The biggest increase can be seen in traveling to Antarctica and in more luxurious small-to-medium scale cruises to Alaska or the Mediterranean.”
The average price of the packages they provide is between 80,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan. About 9 percent of the agency’s customers spend more than 200,000 yuan on a single trip.
However, the photographer who took the photos says he witnessed several uncivilized moments, such as some Chinese tourists chasing penguins for photos or rushing into a flock of penguins to take selfies despite warnings from guides or team leaders.
“When I went, the local guides made it clear that we must not go too close to the penguins to avoid interrupting their normal life,” says Chen Xin, a 54-year-old retired businesswoman who has visited Antarctica twice.
IAATO’s guidelines ask tourists not to “feed, touch, or handle birds or seals, or approach or photograph them in ways that cause them to alter their behavior.”
Three years ago, HHtravel says it launched a handful of small-scale African trips that follow wildlife migration routes. The agency’s signature product is an 80-day, around-the-world trip that stops in five continents, including the polar areas, via business-class flight seats and luxurious cruises. Each trip is limited to 10 and costs 1.25 million yuan per person.
The agency’s 2014 survey shows most customers are between 36 and 50 years of age, and more women than men. Nearly half of them are executives, while the majority are from Shanghai and Beijing.
“Traveling is my biggest leisure expense now,” says Laura Pang, a 34-year-old entrepreneur. “I always loved traveling, but five years ago the travel agencies didn’t have trips to a lot of places I wanted to go such as Peru, Kenya or the Caribbean.”
It took a great deal of time and energy to handle the paperwork and prepare for her trip in 2010, when she visited Chile. The agency didn’t have much experience and she couldn’t find an organized trip back then.
“Of course it is very different now. There are trips going to every corner of the world, even including going around the world. I really want to try that when I have time,” she says.
Pang prefers destinations that “few other Chinese have been to or even know about.”
“It has become quite common to go to Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York or Sydney,” she says. “Many people have been there and I have been to all of them, and I always look for somewhere more exotic, more exciting, somewhere that can impress me and my friends, somewhere still untouched.”
For Chen, the retired businesswoman, the point is to visit all the faraway and hard-to-reach places before she gets too old.
Chen’s son went to the US to study in 2008, leaving her with a lot of time. Soon she started traveling overseas, first to visit her son and then to enjoy herself.
The Nanjing native visited the Arctic in 2013 and Antarctica twice last year.
“I wanted somewhere rare, since I had already been to all the common destinations,” she says. “Visiting the polar regions was valuable experience. We learned a lot from the lectures given on the cruise, and the scenes were just absolutely stunning.”
In her tour, all Chinese, she was among the oldest.
“On my first tour to Antarctica the ship was completely occupied by our Chinese tour group and we cruised on the sea for nearly 20 days with each other so it didn’t feel like a trip,” she recalls. “When I visited again later, I deliberately chose to travel via a ship that did not just include Chinese.”
Having visited both polar regions, Chen says her future plan is to spend more time in each destination she decides to visit.
“Or maybe one day to outer space,” she says. “I’ve heard about those trips to outer space, maybe that will become available one day. So far, it doesn’t sound that interesting, because you basically can’t really step outside of the spaceship to see or touch anything, you are kind of stuck and caged in the ship.”
Chen’s joke may well become reality in the near future, as the controversial Mars One, a not-for-profit foundation aiming to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023, announced its new round of candidates in February.
The list of 100 candidates, having gone through a couple rounds, has been selected from more than 200,000 people who applied from all over the world. A large percent of these applicants are from the Chinese mainland. Two of the 100 finalists are from China.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
