Ahead of the busy Golden Week national holiday, Chinese travellers are being urged to be on their best behaviour.
The China National Tourism Administration and leading online travel company Ctrip.com are partnering in a campaign to find well behaved role models for tourists.
"Civility of Chinese tourists is an important indicator of a country’s soft power and one of the major ways to export a country’s influence," said Wang Xiaofeng , vice chairman of CNTA at an unveiling of the campaign.
In association with state-run newspaper China Daily, the Chinese public are being asked to provide examples of perfect traveller behaviour with prizes of free travel products offered by Ctrip.
"The campaign is about changing the perception of Chinese travellers. We definitely want Chinese travelers to be well-received abroad," said Ctrip senior director of investment relations Zhou Shiwei.
The campaign will publish a set of guidelines and pictures of well behaved travellers during Golden Week.
The campaign is named ‘Good Chinese Tourists.’
Recently the tourism administration published a ‘civilised tourist’ guidebook asking travellers to refrain from being ‘greedy with complimentary items,’ and ‘do not chase, beat or feed animals’ among several recommendations.
The government has a current blacklist of travellers who have been accused of ‘shameful’ behaviour such as air rage, defacing historic artefacts and assault of tourism and airline workers.
