PolyU Study Finds High-speed Rail Boosts Chinese Domestic Tourism Demand

PolyU's School of Hotel and Tourism Management | March 17, 2015

17 March 2015 - In pioneering study, Professor Hanqin Qiu of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and two co-authors have found that China's high-speed railway has increased domestic tourism demand. The researchers investigated the effects of the 1,070-kilometre Wuhan-Guangzhou stretch of the railway on domestic tourism receipts in three Chinese provinces, finding that it has produced significant benefits for tourism in Guangdong and Hunan, with Hubei lagging behind. Yet the overall situation, they suggest, broadly confirms that "transport infrastructure is a necessary precondition fo...