Overseas tourists were not as happy about their visit to China during the past three months of this year compared with earlier in the year, according to a report issued Wednesday.

The degree of satisfaction of inbound tourists during the third quarter was 80.12 out of 100 or 9.49 points less than in the second quarter, a report conducted by China Tourism Academy, which was sponsored by the National Tourism Administration.

"The questionnaires showed that the inbound tourists mainly spoke poorly about accommodation, traffic and the shopping industry, but they gave relatively high marks to travel agencies," Li Zhongguang, associate professor with the academy who led the survey, told the Global Times Thursday.

About 1,000 inbound tourists were surveyed at airports in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to He Qiongfeng, who was involved in the survey.

Some tourists are dissatisfied with the promotional technique of sales people, saying they sometimes canvass for customers.

The questionnaire covered nearly 100 specific items including transportation, fees and evaluation of various services, He told the Global Times Thursday.

The report said that tourists from Macao, Spain, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia gave of the best marks about their experiences on the Chinese mainland.

Tourists, most arriving as independent travelers, had more to complain about the traffic, sales promotion techniques and the air quality of the cities they visited, Li said.

The report also issued satisfaction grades for 50 cities, with Nanjing at 80.97 and Shenyang at 79.27 topping the list. Beijing got 78.50 and was fourth and Shanghai got 77.64 and was sixth. Central and western cities including Changsha (66.60), Lanzhou (64.83) and Yan'an (63.04) were among the bottom 10.

"The aim of the quarterly reports is to discover problems and try to find solutions, so as to promote tourism services," Li said, adding that they plan to turn over the survey results to local authorities.

In the first eight months, the inbound tourists reached 88.7 million, up 5.8 percent over the same period last year, and the made $29.867 billion, up by 15.46 percent, according to latest statistics released by the administration.

"The Shanghai World Expo and economic development has contributed to the growth," Li said, adding that in addition to increased supervision, the local government has tried to improve public facilities and the environment in the region.

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