The Grumpy Traveller is relieved only 100 million Chinese can afford to fly this year,

First the bad news.  The UK's Economist Intelligence Unit estimates that by 2007 China is expected to replace the United States as the largest originator of world tourists. 

Now the not-quite-so-bad news: Of China's 1.2 billion-plus population, just 100 million are currently able to afford to fly.

Phew! That's a relief. Approximately, 1.1 billion will be staying at home practising their feng shui, or flicking through holiday brochures wishing they could join their 100 million colleagues who will be trying to squeeze through the doors of Harrods for the annual summer sale.

The Economist Intelligence Unit says 28.5m tourists will fly out of China this year. And this figure will rise further, following last year's decision by the Chinese government to increase to 90 the number of destinations worldwide approved for its citizens to visit.

What this means for you and me is that when the great march out of China gathers momentum in the next few years, we'll be the 300th person in the immigration queue at Bangkok's new airport; and we'll only have to wait two hours to check into a downtown 3-star hotel in Hanoi behind the 800-strong incentive group from the Lucky Strike Bamboo Manufacturing Company of Ningbo.

Mega hotels built especially for Chinese guests will introduce a lottery system for breakfast. Lucky winners will be able to eat at seven; others will have to wait until eleven.

Stores like Harrods in London and Bloomingdale's in New York will have ticket systems for entry. Shoppers will take a number from a machine at the entrance to the store and wait for it to be called. Hopefully, they'll get in before the store closes.

And I now realise why those clever people at Airbus are building the 555-seat, superjumbo A380. Airlines who buy the flying monster will be able to discard those over-hyped extras like cocktail bars, beauty parlours and casinos. Instead, they'll just pack in more seats.

It's bad enough already in China. A couple of years back I visited a garden which, from memory, was called something like the Emperor's Garden of Perfect Peace and Lasting Tranquility. Lasting tranquility? As I mooched around with thousands of locals, stopping every few metres to allow Xie Mei to take a photograph of Po Sin; and then Po Sin to take a photograph Xie Mei, I figured I would find more peace and tranquility at a Champions League cup final in Istanbul.

Help is at hand, however. The first edition of the new Australian Traveller magazine has named its 10 best and 10 worst tourist towns in Australia.

Top of the must-visit places in Australia is the town where I live, which is a bit of a worry if this news reaches Beijing or Shanghai.

The worst place to visit is Zeehan in Tasmania, which the article's author describes as a "rough-as-guts" mining town.

There again, it sounds just the sort of place 100 million Chinese won't bother with.



IAN JARRETT is based in Fremantle, Western Australia from where he travels frequently in Asia on assignments for travel magazines.

He is a member of the BamBoo Alliance, a group of leading travel writers in the region. He can be contacted at ianjarrett@mac.com