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China's thriving tourism will boost its credit card business, Xiong Anping, general manager of Visa International China, said here Wednesday.

How to spend safely and conveniently has become a common concern for international tourists in China, he said. Compared with cash, credit cards have become the first choice for inbound travelers in terms of convenience and safety.

If credit cards are more widely accepted, there will be more transactions and greater consumption, he said. To widen the opportunities for using credit cards will provide new openings for tourism development, according to the latest survey by Visa.

Increasing numbers of tourists as well as business people have come to China in recent years, where the economy is developing rapidly.

China became the fifth largest destination for global tourists in 2001, with tourism revenue reaching 17.8 billion US dollars, ranking fifth worldwide, according to statistics from the World Tourism Organization.

Meanwhile, China has become the second largest market for attracting investment.

The development of inbound tourism will stimulate domestic demand as well as increase foreign currency income, said Sun Gang, vice chairman of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).

Research by Goldman Sachs indicates that China's entry into the World Trade Organization and Beijing's successful bidding for hosting the 2008 Olympic Games will attract more and more foreign tourists to China. Foreign currency income from tourism will amount to 60 billion US dollars by 2008.

By September this year, China had issued 535,000 international credit cards.