China's tourism industry rebounded strongly in the wake of SARS last year, with a nearly 20 percent increase in foreign arrivals and a 50 percent surge in revenue.

Some 99 million foreign tourists arrived in China between January and November last year, a 19.6 percent rise from the same period a year earlier, Xinhua reported, citing China’s National Tourism Administration.

The report said that arrivals in the first 11 months of 2004 also exceeded the arrivals for all of 2002, but no figure was provided. In the first 11 months of 2004, China earned US$23.5 billion in tourist revenue, up 50 percent from a year ago, Xinhua said.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, infected more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed 774 in 2003. During the height of the outbreak, China’s tourism industry came to a halt. China has said it hopes to have 210 million foreign visitors annually by 2020.

(Shenzhen Daily January 5, 2005)