General Information » Economy » Tourism

Tourism is playing an increasingly important role in Shanghai’s economy. Overseas arrivals through Shanghai customs doubled from 890,000 in 1990 to 1.8 million in 2000, and by 2005 that had trebled to 5.7 million. The growth in foreign visitors not including Hong Kong and Macau Chinese or those from Taiwan is even more impressive, registering a 10-fold increase from 460,000 in 1990 to more than 4.5 million in 2005. Those figures only take into account visitors arriving directly at Shanghai from overseas points and not those entering via other Chinese gateways. According to the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administrative Commission, it actually attracted over six million overseas tourists in 2006 – more than Beijing is anticipating during its Olympics year in 2008.