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With the rapid increase of overseas travel operators in China, the State Tourism Administration has decided to adopt measures to strengthen management over the market in a bid to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, Director of the National Tourism Administration Shao Qiwei said here on Monday.

The administration aims to organize the market by using legal,economic, administrative as well as industry self-discipline and further perfect the service mechanism.

China has scored remarkable results in this regard since 2000, when the administration launched a campaign to rectify the overseas travel market, said Shao.

Last year, the administration handled 726 complaints by travelers, and a total of 1.658 million yuan (199,700 US dollars) were given to tourists as compensation, statistics of the administration showed.

The latest statistics said that there are 672 tour agencies in China which are authorized to organize tours to overseas destinations. The figure is 10 times that in 2002.

Last year, the income from outbound travel amounted to 18.4 billion yuan (2.2 billion US dollars), up 75 percent from 2003.

According to Shao, currently, Chinese citizens can travel to 69 destinations overseas on self-sponsorship.

The World Tourism Organization predicts that by 2020, about 100 million Chinese will travel abroad, with the average per capita expenditure overseas standing at 1,000 US dollars.