There were many people visiting the old city of Pingyao, in Shanxi province, on World Tourism Day, on Sept 27, when thanks to some new provincial rules for this year, visitors could get in free, as well as on China Tourism Day (May 19).

World Tourism Day was thought up by the World Tourism Organization to benefit tourists and people in the tourism business organizing and in recognition of the very day it was chartered, in Mexico City, in 1970, by its predecessor, the Alliance International de Tourisme. It also happens to be the time when tourism fever in the northern hemisphere begins to cool a bit while that in the southern hemisphere is beginning to heat up. Its theme this year is “Tourism and Water: Protecting Our Common Future”.

Edited by Lin Hong and Roger Bradshaw