At the current growth rate, Chinese tourists visiting Germany will surpass those from Japan, making China Germany's second-biggest overseas and biggest Asian tourism source nation, President Hanns P. Nerger of the Berlin Tourism Marketing Company (BTM) said Wednesday.

He said that after Germany was granted Approved Destination Status (ADS) by the Chinese government one year ago, the number of Chinese tourists had increased, as exit procedures had been simplified for them.

The momentum is expected to continue.

He noted that the SARS crisis had caused only a temporary diminution in the number of Chinese tourists abroad. More and more rich Chinese people can afford to pay for overseas trips to countries including Germany.

Over 20,000 Chinese traveled to Germany last year, up 14.1 percent over the previous year.

Nerger said that in recent years BTM has turned its attention to exploring China as a tourism market, by providing tourism information on a Chinese-language website and signing cooperation agreements with the Qingdao and Chengdu tourism bureaus.

(People's Daily August 21, 2003)