Ningbo ranks high in customer satisfaction for tourism

The increase of both tourist income and amount, along with the steady growth of foreign exchange income in tourism and the new high of customer satisfaction, shows the sustainable development of tourism in Ningbo last year. It is learned from Ningbo Tourism Bureau that in 2013 Ningbo achieved a tourist turnover of 95.354 billion yuan, up by 10.52% over the previous year.

In the past year, the tourism industry in Ningbo survived such extreme weathers as high temperature and flood and all the major tourist indexes maintained a stable growth. To be specific, Ningbo received 62.258 million domestic tourists with an income of 90.421 billion yuan, up by 8.31% and 10.75% respectively. The city received 1.273 million overseas tourists with an income of 796 million dollars, both up by over 8%. The outbound tourist market continued to develop at a high speed, as 611,900 tourists attended outbound tours arranged by travel agencies, an increase of 24.15% over that of the previous year.

In 2013, besides the growing economic indexes, the service quality of tourism in Ningbo set a historical record. According to the recently released survey report for customer satisfaction in tourism industry in the 4th quarter of 2013, Ningbo ranks No.2 among the 60 monitored cities, which is the best performance among the four quarters the whole year.

The implementation of the first "tourism law" since October 2013 promoted the regulated development of the tourism industry in Ningbo. With the reasonablization of the prices of tourist products, such bad phenomena as "zero or negative package fee" have been controlled in an effective way. Most tourist agencies adjusted their existing operating patterns in such routes as Yunnan, Hainan Island, Thailand and Hong Kong & Macao and started the personalized quality tourist products and improved their quality of services, which greatly attracted a lot of tourists.

The reception scale of scenic spots continues to expand. Statistics show that in 2013, the scenic spots in Ningbo received 48.3949 million tourists, up by 5.98% over the previous year, and the income on tourist tickets increased by 11.74%. Throughout the year, 11 units were approved as industrial tourism demonstration spots, and six of them at the provincial level.

The coming of the mass consumption era brings about new chances and challenges for the development of the catering industry. In 2013, under the macro policy environment and competition in the industry, the catering industry in Ningbo witnessed a narrowed profit margin and had to speed up the transformation and upgrading. The transformation from "business rather than tourism" to "business and tourism" and from "actual markets" to "both actual and online markets" enables an increasing number of high-end hotels to open their doors to the ordinary public.

LINK:	http://en.nbwh.gov.cn/art/2014/2/7/art_1325_49732.html...
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