Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) asked India to open a consulate in Kunming during a meeting with Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni in New Delhi last week, according to Indian media reports.

Direct flights between Kunming and Kolkata, capital of eastern India's West Bengal state, were launched in late 2007, but visa regulations and lack of a Kunming consulate make it difficult for Chinese living in southwestern China to visit India.

In order to obtain a visa, applicants must go to India's embassy in Beijing or its consulates in Shanghai and Hong Kong. For people living in Yunnan, it's often easier to skip the Kunming-Kolkata flight and fly to nearby Bangkok where there is an Indian embassy and more flight options to India.

While meeting with Qin and a delegation of Yunnan officials and entrepreneurs last Wednesday, Soni invited the visitors from Yunnan to invest in India's tourist infrastructure and called for closer cooperation between the two countries.

During the visit, the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the West Bengal Tourism Directorate, West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation and Travel Agents Association of India Eastern Chapter to "build a mutual bond on tourism practices, exchange and understanding."

Indian tourist visits to China are roughly quadruple the number of Chinese visits to India.

Tags: Beijing, Hong Kong, India, Kolkata, Qin Guangrong, Shanghai, tourism, travel, visas, West Bengal

Kunming will be the starting point of a four-country, 2,500-kilometer car rally next month that is aimed at promoting friendship between China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, according to a Xinhua news report.

The report, citing Myanmar media reports, said that 18 cars from the four countries will set off from Kunming in April – the date of the race's start is still under discussion – and will arrive in Kolkata, India ten days later. Each country will have three cars in the race, which will also include six support vehicles.

The China leg of the race, all of which will be in Yunnan province, will end at the border town of Ruili in western Yunnan, as the cars pass into Myanmar via the town of Muse. Nearly 1,000 kilometers of the rally will be in Myanmar.

As transport infrastructure between the four often uneasy neighbors continues to improve, it is hoped that the rally will promote trade and tourism among the countries, the report said.

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Tags: Bangladesh, car rally, India, Kolkata, Myanmar, Ruili, sports, tourism

Next month Kunming will host joint military exercises between China and India, a major milestone in relations between the world's two most populous countries. China and India went to war with each other in 1962 over their shared Himalayan border and have only in recent years begun to open up to each other.

December's first-ever Sino-Indian war games will feature 200 personnel from the Chinese and Indian armies and will focus on anti-terrorism exercises. Army officials from the respective armies are scheduled to meet next week in the West Bengal city of Kolkata - headquarters of the Indian army's Eastern Command – to hash out the details of the joint exercises, which were approved in Beijing at the beginning of the month during a meeting of military officials from the two countries.

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Tags: Himalayas, India, Kolkata, war games

Special guest India's booth at CITM

Travel marketers from all over the world descended on Kunming last week for the annual China International Travel Mart, looking to make connections with travel agents and better understand what is generally considered the world's fastest-growing outgoing travel market.

Travel industry suppliers from all over the globe sent representatives to CITM, China's biggest travel expo, which alternates between host cities Shanghai and Kunming. In the evenings, foreign and domestic exhibitors held press conferences and feted the tour operators, travel agents and travel media who attended.

GoKunming didn't find the same complaints that some exhibitors had in 2005 about the city's ability to host the event, but there seemed to be consensus that the show is smaller when it comes to Kunming than when it goes to Shanghai.

"The show is bigger in Shanghai - the crowd is bigger and there are more exhibitors. But maybe you get more visibility here when the show is smaller," said Michael Rudolph, who was representing Air Berlin, a new airline that will have direct flights to Dusseldorf from Beijing and Shanghai. Rudolph also was surprised by the scale of Kunming as a city: "You expect a provincial town but it isn't."

Though the Kunming show may be smaller, it's still important to people like Caroline Zhang, marketing director for the Donghu Hotel in Shanghai. "Every year, the travel agents change. We have to meet the new ones," said Zhang, who brought representatives from her marketing, sales and public relations department. "We have to tell everybody we're still here."

For foreign tourist boards, the vast majority of which do not have satellite offices in China as they do in other major markets, CITM is a chance to learn more about Chinese travelers and make decisions about how to spend their marketing dollars.

The California Travel and Tourism Commission dispatched its international marketing director for the Asia-Pacific region, Matthew Boone, to look into how it could better market California as a destination in China. Boone says the state recently approved US$250,000 in marketing spend in China between now and next June. He says that most of that money will be spent on China's east coast, the origin of 70 percent of travel from China to California.

"That's a lot less than the US$6 million we're spending in Japan, but I expect the amount to increase," Boone said.

One of the biggest and most impressive booths at the event was that of India, a country that became more accessible from China with the launch last week of two new China Eastern routes, Kunming-Calcutta and Guangzhou-New Delhi. Though the routes will largely carry business travelers, they also increase opportunities for tour operators like Amit Prasad, vice president of India Journeys.

"We're getting more tourism interest from China and India is increasing its China marketing efforts," Prasad said. "And our Ministry of Tourism is opening a marketing office in Beijing." He also expects growth in China-bound travel from India. "Kunming has a lot of potential for Indian tourists," he says.

The expo lasted from last Thursday through Sunday, but was only open to the public on the weekend. Most of the international exhibitors' marketing directors and vice presidents of Asia marketing packed up Friday afternoon, leaving Chinese partners or hired help to staff the booths on the weekend.

Though most foreign exhibitors didn't seem to have plans to stick around Yunnan after the event, at least one Chinese exhibitor was planning to take advantage of the opportunity. "I like it when the expo is here because I can do a little traveling in Yunnan," said Leng Jie, business department manager for the Shanghai Zhu Jia Jiao Ancient Town Tourism Development Co. "I'm going to Zhongdian the day after tomorrow."

Tags: China International Travel Mart, India, tourism, travel

China Eastern Airlines will begin offering direct flights from Kunming to Kolkata before the end of the year, according to an interview in the Indian Express with China's General Consul to Kolkata. The opening of the air route between the two cities is expected to increase business and tourism exchanges between the world's most populous countries and their rapidly growing economies.

The route will be Kunming's first direct link to India and Kolkata's first direct flight to China. Kolkata is home to India's largest Chinatown and will soon be home to China's second consulate after Mumbai. The Kolkata consulate will be opened by Consul General of China to Kolkata Mao Siwei, who emphasized the large Chinese presence in the city and the need of residents of eastern India to have direct access to China.

"Every year a lot of people from eastern India visit[ing] China, either for business or for travel. That has necessitated the inauguration of direct flights between Kolkata and Kunming," Mao said.

Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao

After decades of icy relations, China and India are quickly warming up to each other both diplomatically and economically. As trust has grown between the two countries' governments, commercial exchanges have mushroomed from less than US$2 billion in bilateral trade in 1999 to a projected bilateral trade of US$30 billion this year.

In April of this year India began working on rebuilding its section of the Stilwell Road, a World War II-era supply route that connected Kunming to northeast India via Myanmar. Once completed, the road will be the only highway linking India to a major city in China.

Update: Kolkata-based newspaper The Telegraph is reporting that the Kunming-Kolkata route will launch on October 29. The thrice-weekly flight will arrive at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 11:40 pm and Kunming Wujiaba International Airport at 5:10 am (both local time).

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India Daily

Tags: China Eastern Airlines, India, Kolkata, tourism, travel

Yunnan University and Mumbai University have reached an agreement to begin educational exchanges aimed at improving relations between the two Asian countries, according to Indian media reports.

Under the agreement between the schools, Yunnan University will begin offering courses in September that are expected to include subjects such as Indian history, Buddhism, Indian philosophy, Sanskrit and Hindi. Professors and experts from India will teach the courses in Yunnan. Indian software experts will also help Yunnan University establish a software institute.

As part of the exchange, Chinese professors and experts will go to India to teach courses related to Chinese culture and history. A tentative course list includes Chinese language, Taoism and Chinese philosophy.

Tags: education, India, Mumbai University, Yunnan University

India has commenced rebuilding its section of the Stilwell Road, a road that will link southwest China and northeast India and whose completion is expected to be a major boost to trade and tourism between the two Asian powers.

A former World War II supply route, the road is named after US General Joe Stilwell, who oversaw its construction in 1944. The 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) road once connected Kunming with the city of Ledo in Assam state, with most of the road passing through northern Myanmar. Only 61 kilometers of the road are in India, which had been reluctant to renovate the road out of security and drug trafficking concerns.

China has already completed renovations on its 600-kilometer segment, which has been upgraded to a six-lane expressway. China has also been assisting Myanmar with construction of its 1,000-kilometer segment of the road, which would be the first viable overland transport link between China and India.

In recent years China and India have emerged from decades of icy relations with a new to increase economic and governmental interaction. Progress has been made on some unresolved border issues and bilateral trade has rocketed from a paltry US$2 billion in 1999 to around US$18 billion in 2005.

Goods transported between the two countries via the renovated road would take two days to make the trip. At present, sea cargo between must pass south of Singapore and through the Malacca Strait. Reopening the Stilwell Road would cut the distance between China and India by 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).

The primary variable in the road's renovation is Myanmar. It is still unclear both how much in terms of resources Myanmar is willing to put into its segment of the road and how much China and India will step in to expedite completion. China is especially keen to see the road opened and will likely do all it can to open this backdoor to India sooner rather than later.

Tags: business. logistics, foreign trade, India, Myanmar, Stilwell Road, transportation

This month in New Delhi, India and China inaugurated the 'India-China Year of Friendship Through Tourism', which will promote tourism between these two massive neighbors that have only recently begun to interact with one another.

This year is the first year that India's tourism ministry will aggressively pursue inbound Chinese tourists, primarily by opening a tourism office in Shanghai, publication of tourism materials in Chinese and a Chinese version of its 'Incredible India' website.

According to India's tourism ministry, India received 46,805 inbound Chinese travelers in 2005, compared to 629,947 Indians visiting China in the same year. The ministry's research has found Buddhism to be the primary draw for Chinese tourists, with yoga and Bollywood also noted as major attractions.

Kunming will be an important city in this year's ministerial and industry exchanges between. Major events coming up in the next twelve months include:

May
Familiarization trips of a 15-member Indian media and tour operator delegation to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Yunnan and Sichuan

June
Opening of the India Tourism Office in Shanghai

August
CNTA to inaugurate its office in New Delhi.

November
Participation by India Tourism in the China International Travel Mart in Kunming, CNTA has designated India as Guest Country of Honor

January 2008
Visit by Indian Minister for Tourism and Culture to Kunming to attend the closing ceremony of 'India-China Year of Friendship Through Tourism'; India's Cultural and Food Festival in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province

Tags: India, tourism, travel