The University of Surrey’s retired Pro-Vice Chancellor and tourism education and research expert, Professor David Airey, said the Chinese economy grew in no small part on the back of hotels, resorts and sightseeing tours in the late 1980s.
In fact, he said, the establishment of Beijing’s Jianguo Hotel during that time represented the first foreign investment in China, ending centuries of self-reliance and anti-imperialism.
He said Chinese leaders pushed strongly for moves to establish tourism in the late 1980s.
UQ News reported he said that country’s leaders realised they could not rely only on overseas visitors on sightseeing tours, so they moved to establish resorts to attract more of a slice of the tourist dollar.