Xiamen is a beautiful "seaside garden". "A city in the sea and sea in the city" is a vivid description of Xiamen. Islands and islets, cliffs and crags, rocks and stones, temples, subtropical flowers and trees, set off each other more beautifully. Xiamen is famous for its large number of overseas Chinese and that forms the basis for Xiamen to become a city blending local conditions and Taiwanese customs, delicious seafood and exotic buildings. Such pleasant climate as warm as in spring all year round is another feature attractive to tourists visiting this seaside city. Xiamen is located opposite to Taiwan and the Southeast Asia across the Taiwan Strait. This geographical advantage and the complementary transport facilities including waterways, land roads and airways are also powerful force for the sustained development of Xiamen's tourist industry.
Xiamen started to develop its tourist industry shortly after the founding of New China. In November 1949, Overseas Chinese Travel Service Xiamen, i.e. Xiamen China Travel Service was founded, which was actually the first travel agency formed in New China. With the adoption of reform and opening up policy, Xiamen's tourist industry emerged as a flourishing industry. From 1991 to 1998, the number of foreign tourists visiting Xiamen, the days the tourists spend sightseeing in Xiamen and the (foreign exchange) income from tourism come in the tenth place for successive 8 years among the tourist cities nationwide. The domestic tourism has also been making impressive progress. Now Xiamen has been listed as one of the tourist cities of China with its outstanding performance in developing tourism during the last decades and the tourist trade has become one of the key economic sectors and a new economic growth point for the Xiamen City.
With a view to building Xiamen into a "seaside garden" as a burgeoning tourist city, the quality of Xiamen's tourist trade has been markedly improved. It has also made great progress in expanding the tourist markets both at home and abroad. In the respect of the legislation in tourism, Xiamen City has promulgated its own regulations and rules in order to standardize the business activities of the tourist trade in Xiamen. They include the Management Regulations Governing Xiamen's Tourism, the Temporary Provisions Concerning the Protection and Development of Tourist Resources in Xiamen, the Measures to Regulate the Designated Tourist Units in Xiamen and the Temporary Provisions Concerning the Regulation of One-day Excursion Routes in Xiamen, etc. The above papers and documents together constitute the basic legislation in regulating the local tourism and have contributed to creating a favorable condition for "governing the tourist trade according to regulations and rules". With respect to the development of tourist resources, Xiamen has established more than ten tourist attractions including Gulangyu Island, Ten Thousand Stone Hill (Wanshishan), South Putuo Temple, Jimei Village of Scholars, etc. And the Gulangyu Island-Ten Thousand Stone Hill Tourist Route has been designated as one of the country's major scenic spots by the State Council. Especially, in order to make Xiamen a city more attractive to foreign companies and individual investors, it has completed the construction of the following new tourist projects since 1995-Xiamen Film and Television Recreational City, Taiwan Folk Custom Village (i.e., the Jingzhou Amusement Park), Undersea World in Gulangyu Island, Rongguang Treasures Museum on Hulishan Fortress, City of Aeronautical Science and Technology in Jimei, Oriental (Dongfang) Country Golf Club and Triumphant (Daige) Country Golf Club, both of which are designed and constructed according to the international standards. All the above entertainment facilities have been open to public. As for the tourist hotels and travel agencies, Xiamen City currently has 79 hotels capable of receiving foreign tourists, of which 45 are four-star rated hotels with more than 10,200 guestrooms; and some 340 middle and small-sized social hotels with about 2,200 beds. There are 12 international travel agencies and 36 domestic travel agencies and over 200 public places of entertainment. During 1998, Xiamen entertained 483,500 overseas tourists and 5,855,200 domestic visitors, which brought in $239 million of foreign exchange and 5.576 billion yuan in RMB respectively. The increased return from the tourist trade contributes to a 6% rise in the municipal GDP.
To get ready to meet the new challenge of the new century with more vigorous force, Xiamen has defined its trans-century target in developing tourist industry-to build Xiamen into a major tourist port in Southeast China and seaside tourist city of the country attractive to international sightseers and holiday makers with complete tourist infrastructure and recreational facilities.