When did China first accept foreign tourists?
CITS was established in 1954, but it is not until the initiation of reforms and opening to the outside world that tourism really started, towards the end of the 1970s. I would venture to say that tourism started around 1978, but not in huge numbers, and mostly as part of organized tours, as independent tourist visas were very difficult to obtain. My first trip there was in 1984 and I recall only a handful of foreigner flying from Canada on the plane. I can’t find the reference but I remember reading that the number of foreign visitors in China in 1978 was only about 200,000, compared to more than 25 million now.
