Travel Agents’ educational to China that went very wrong
Saturday, 07 Mar, 2008
0
AP reports from China say it remains a mystery why a Chinese man armed with explosives boarded a tourist bus in north-central China and took 10 Australian travel agents hostage before being shot dead by police.
“There is no indication this was particularly aimed at Australia or Australians,” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told his country’s Nine Network television on Thursday.
All 10 were unharmed in Wednesday’s incident in the popular tourist city of Xi’an.
High-profile violence aimed at tourists in China is rare. It’s not clear how the hostage-taking in one of the country’s most popular sightseeing cities will affect tourism as Beijing prepares to host the Olympics in August.
One of the hostages told a friend and a family member by phone that most of the Australians ran from the bus as soon as they saw the man had explosives strapped to his body.
“He was pacing up and down the bus, they couldn’t understand what he was saying, but they said by the look on their guide Eric’s face they knew something was amiss,” said Sue Wynne, a colleague of one of the hostages, 22-year-old Rhiannon Dunkley. “And then he turned around, opened up his jacket and he had a bomb strapped to him.”
Nine of the hostages left the bus quickly, but a 48-year-old woman from New South Wales stayed on the bus with the group’s translator during the hijacker’s nearly three-hour standoff with police on Wednesday morning.
A sniper finally shot and killed the man, Xia Tao, after he was allowed to change buses and was approaching an airport toll station, police told the official Xinhua News Agency.
Police in Xi’an said Thursday they had no further details on the incident. Australian officials in Shanghai, where the Australians arrived Wednesday night after their ordeal, were not commenting.
“The woman from NSW was particularly distressed, as you’d expect … but has bounced back very quickly,” Smith told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
He said some of the hostages were treated for minor medical conditions, but “it was more shock and the horror of being involved in such a terrible situation.”
He said all were planning to return to Australia later Thursday.
All were travel agents from three Australian states who were on a tour organized by Sydney-based company China Bestours, said the company’s general manager, Jimmy Liu, adding, “This is an educational tour for our travel agents”.
“They sell our products and we bring them to China so they can know more about our product.”
He would not name the travel companies they worked for.
Wynne said she works with Dunkley at Corowa Travel Link in Corowa, a town about 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of Sydney.
Dunkley’s father-in-law, Gary Dunkley, said he had also spoken to her by phone.
“She had noticed that this guy was acting suspiciously on the bus, and when he swung around they noticed the bomb strapped to him and three or four spotted it, and they just did a bolt off the bus straight away,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Xi’an, where the travel agents were visiting, is a popular tourist site for its millenniums-old mausoleum containing thousands of terra cotta statues of warriors, horses and chariots.
A report released Thursday by the World Travel & Tourism Council and Accenture says China is the world’s second-largest tourism economy and estimates that tourism there is expected to generate approximately $592.0 billion (€389.58 billion) in 2008.
A Report by The Mole from AP
John Alwyn-Jones
Vegas’s Billion-Dollar Secrets – What They Don’t Want Tourists to Know
Visit Florida’s New CEO Bryan Griffin Shares His Vision for State Tourism with Graham
Chicago’s Tourism Renaissance: Graham Interviews Kristin Reynolds of Choose Chicago
Graham Talks with Cassandra McCauley of MMGY NextFactor About the Latest Industry Research
Destination International’s Andreas Weissenborn: Research, Advocacy, and Destination Impact
Graham and Don Welsh Discuss the Success of Destinations International’s Annual Conference
Graham and CEO Andre Kiwitz on Ventura Travel’s UK Move and Recruitment for the Role
Brett Laiken and Graham Discuss Florida’s Tourism Momentum and Global Appeal
Graham and Elliot Ferguson on Positioning DC as a Cultural and Inclusive Global Destination
Graham Talks to Fraser Last About His England-to-Ireland Trek for Mental Health Awareness
Kathy Nelson Tells Graham About the Honour of Hosting the World Cup and Kansas City’s Future
Graham McKenzie on Sir Richie Richardson’s Dual Passion for Golf and His Homeland, Antigua
ADS PRO 
Clearing CSS/JS assets' cache... Please wait until this notice disappears...
Updating... Please wait...
Phocuswright reveals the world's largest travel markets in volume in 2025
Cyclone in Sri Lanka had limited effect on tourism in contrary to media reports
Skyscanner reveals major travel trends 2026 at ITB Asia
Higher departure tax and visa cost, e-arrival card: Japan unleashes the fiscal weapon against tourists
In Italy, the Meloni government congratulates itself for its tourism achievements