Market Report - Many Foreigners Avoid Olympics

CHAN:
Glamorous venues and historic sites. Touring Beijing can be an exciting experience for many overseas tourists who can mix sporting entertainment with cultural pleasures.

But the Olympics is not pulling in the huge overseas crowds many hotels and authorities had expected. The number visiting Beijing this summer is no more than last year, when there were no athletic stars in sight.

American Nick Driver is one in about 400-thousand who did decided  to make the trip.

[Nick Driver, American Tourist]:
" There were a lot of people that we knew that were going to come and were sort of scared off by the rumors. Now, whether or not they were true, they ended up not coming."

Many were put off by worries about security. Many more were hampered by strict visa requirements to get into the country.

Category:

News & Politics

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[WolYou]

There is three times more tourists in vienna during summer than in beijing 2008. Some healthy instinct has kept the foreigners away.