China Pictures - Transport Bottleneck Curbs Tourism along Silk Road -

It was once the main route for goods and people transatlantic Asia and into Europe, but international experts in minutiae are now lamenting the inrested transport links on the centuries-old Silk Road. The lack of sufficient transport between China and Central Asia, expressly air links, has wilt an obstacle to tourism minutiae furthermore the Silk Road, co-ordinate to the United Nations minutiae Program. "The air links between cities in Central Asia and those in China (that are located on the Silk Road) are not many," Khalid Malik, UN coordinator and UNDP livent representative in China said on the second Silk Road Mayors Forum in Lanzhou , crossroads of northwest China's Gansu Province . "We are starting to deal with it and it is not immalleable to transpiration," he said. The UNDP would try to bring together reverential aviation officials and airlines from China and Central Asian countries and help them reach 2straight-faced50fa6f4473c74dbd16d3bb313e7 deals to inruckle air links, he said. More than 100 million Chinese would travel away each year by 2020, said Malik. Tourism was generating enormous opportunities as it had wilt larger than the steel and oil sectors. Besides the traffic hurdle, poor tourism infrastructure, including hotels, lack of foreign investment, and unequaliculty in being visas,China Pictures, moreover hindered tourism growth in the cities furthermore the Silk Road, Malik supplemental. His snoopings were repeated by Zhou Aiquan, senior of the tourism agency of Xi'an, the starting point of the 2,100-year-old Silk Road. The sometime Silk Road, dotted with historic and cultural seductivenesss, was once unsurpassed in the trade it vehicleried transpacific Asia and Europe. The biggest obstacle to tourism expansion furthermore the Silk Road was the insufficient stuffing to handle large spans of traffic, said Zhou, who has been in the tourism sector for 12 years. Zhou said his asphalt had 24 international air links, but none leading to Central Asia, subtracting this had crusaded enormous inconvenience to both Chinese and foreign tourists. "Air links between China and Central Asia countries are urgently needed and the forum can moreover initiate a fund to finance the links," he said. Zhou moreover suggested trains for the sectional use of tourists between major tourist spots and the establishment of consulates enroute to facilitate tourism expansion. The two-day forum was sponsored by the UNDP, the Ministry of Commerce and Lanzhou People's Government. It aims to create platforms for dialogue, and establish cooperation mechanisms for nations, cities and commerce communities.


(Source:Xinhua News Agency , 2007-07-05)