Despite the fall in tourists visiting China this year, the four-day China International Tour Mart, which ended yesterday in Shanghai, attracted a record 90,000 exhibitors and visitors from both home and abroad.

Tour agencies at the mart organized trips for 18,000 tour groups, about the same as at last year's CITM.

However, the number of tourists making the trips dropped to 860,000 from the 2.4 million organized last year, said mart organizers.

Tourism insiders said work needed to be done to boost tourism. "The tourism authorities from inside and out of China have reached an agreement to work together to promote the restoration of tourism," said Zhu Shanzhong, spokesman for the National Tourism Administration of China.

According to the Administration's statistics, about 10.5 million tourists from abroad came to China by the end of September, down nearly 6 percent on the same period last year. Shanghai received more than 4.7 million of the total number of tourists from abroad, down 2.6 percent.

The slack tourism market also affected hotel business, officials said.

Brands on show

"At such a hard time, exhibitors from home and abroad tried their best to promote the tourism resources, promoting their brand name tour products," Zhu said. "For example, Shanghai focused on the 2010 World Expo, while Beijing laid an emphasis on the promotion of the Olympic tour resources."

"Domestic tour insiders have also been aware of the big market potential of relaxing tour products," he added. "For example, Weihai, in Shandong Province, is now trying to make itself an international vacation destination."

Of the foreign exhibitors, the United States and Japan were the two highlights. The US occupied 113 booths and had 26 states participating in the mart - the biggest foreign exhibitor at the mart. Japan rented 110 booths, with almost all the main Japanese tour agencies represented, said Zhu.

"We believe many countries regard tourism promotion as a vital policy for the whole economic restoration," Zhu said.

The mart began in 1998 and is held annually in Shanghai and Kunming City, Yunnan Province, alternatively. The next mart will be held in Kunming next November, organizers said yesterday.