NE Dalian city reports tourism earnings rise

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 ◆ NE Dalian city reports tourism earnings rise

Dalian, a port city in northeast China's Liaoning Province, earned 12.86 billion yuan (about 1.55 billion US dollars) from tourism in the first 11 months of the year.

The city hosted 458,000 overseas tourists from January to November and earned 310 million US dollars from related services, said Liu Changde, vice mayor of Dalian.

The fast growth of the tourism industry has created more job opportunities for Dalian. More than 100,000 people have found new jobs in Dalian this year, of whom 10,000 have been employed in the tourism sector, said the vice mayor.

According to Liu, there are now 2,500 companies engaged in tourism services, compared with 500 in 1992. About 196,000 people,or nine percent of the city's total working force, are employed by the industry, as compared with only 90,000 ten years ago.

Liu expected total tourism earnings to rise by 20 percent over that of last year to hit 13.5 billion yuan (about 1.63 billion US dollars) this year, about one tenth of Dalian's gross domestic product (GDP).