P.M. BRIEFING : China Loses $1 Billion in Tourism
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SAN FRANCISCO — The massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square last June has cost the People’s Republic at least $1 billion in lost tourist revenues, a Chinese official said.
“We lost $1 billion or so this year,” said Chinese Counsel General Zheng Wanzhen after a brief appearance at a meeting of the International Assn. of Travel Research and Marketing Professionals. A panel of Asian experts said the lost tourist revenues would total $1.3 billion by the end of the year.
Zheng was optimistic that the tourist trade would snap back. “By next year it will be fully recovered,” he predicted. “What happened in June and July is a very minor event in the course of China’s history.”
Others at the meeting disagreed on how quickly travel to China would pick up.
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