China to blacklist tourists behaving badly abroad

Calum MacLeod | USA TODAY

BEIJING – The world's biggest source of tourists is pledging this week to pressure Chinese who behave badly abroad to improve their manners.

The often brusque manners of China's fast-expanding tour groups range from minor slights, such as spitting and cutting in line, to more outrageous incidents.

In Thailand in February, Chinese tourists outraged Thais by drying underwear in an airport, defecating in public and kicking a temple bell. In December, a group of Chinese tourists abused Thai staff on a flight from Bangkok.

The rude behavior prompted Thailand authorities to issue thousands of Chinese-language handbooks on etiquette.

"Uncivilized behavior when traveling overseas has to some extent already affected the image of Chinese people," the China National Tourism Administration, a government agency, said on its website Tuesday. Such incidents "make Chinese people blush with shame," it said.

To save Chinese face, the CNTA announced new rules Monday to establish a "blacklist" of offenders who demonstrate illegal or inappropriate behavior abroad. The six types of banned behavior include causing disturbances on public transport, damaging cultural relics, ignoring social customs and engaging in gambling or prostitution.

Under the trial regulations, the CNTA will develop a national database on misbehaving tourists, with the records kept for up to two years, though tourists are allowed to appeal their inclusion on the list.

The rules did not specify what punishments are likely, but the Beijing Times said Tuesday that being blacklisted could affect a person's ability to travel abroad again or secure a bank loan, as an offender's information may be passed to law enforcement, customs, transport and banking authorities.

The number of Chinese tourists traveling abroad jumped nearly 20% last year to 109 million, according to CNTA. U.S. Commerce Department figures show 2.19 million Chinese tourists visited the USA last year, a 21% hike from 2013.

By 2021, nearly 7.3 million Chinese are projected to travel to the USA, contributing nearly $85 billion a year to the U.S. economy and supporting 440,000 jobs, the White House said in November. That is when President Obama announced that visas would be extended five years for students and exchange programs and 10 years for businesses and tourists.

Since that announcement, the State Department has seen a 41% increase in Chinese applications for U.S. visas, Christopher Thompson, president and CEO of Brand USA, told the China Daily this week. Chinese tourists spend $6,000 each per trip to the U.S. on average, the highest of any country they visit, he said. Brand USA is a public-private partnership to promote inbound tourism.

"More and more Chinese tourists travel to America, and most of them are civilized, but a few of them embarrassed me in some situations," observed Beijinger Yin Haiyan, 32, who visited the U.S. in November and February. When Chinese tourists rent cars in the USA, "they always break the rules, they seldom stop at stop signs on the road and always overtake other cars in a dangerous way," said Yin, who works for a film company.

"I think the new rules are good, but hard to be implemented," she said. "I think it's good to put some tourists on the blacklist if they break the rules seriously. But for slight violations such as spitting and cutting in line, I think the tour agencies could give them suggestions. Self-discipline is more important than administrative rules."

Contributing: Sunny Yang