Search China Travel News:

China's first recruitment agency for professional tour guides has opened in the city of Guilin, a major tourist destination in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Jointly set up by the Chinese Ministry of Personnel and the Guangxi government, the agency aims to offer more job opportunities to competent local tour guides and other tourism industry professionals.

It was also expected to ease a lack of professional tour guides in the southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing municipality, whose rich tourism attractions would draw more visitors from around the world, said Deng Hui, head of the Guilin personnel exchange center.

The tour guide agency is backed by the abundant human resources in Guilin city. Its picturesque hills and waterways, dubbed "the most beautiful scenery under the sun", have nurtured a large group of professional guides.

The city has over 60,000 tour guides and other industry professionals, over 4,000 of whom are proficient in at least one foreign language. Thousands of well-trained tour guides graduate from local colleges and vocational schools each year.

The agency would adopt an open and competitive system to recruit professional guides, who would be encouraged to spread across the country to ensure a more even allocation of human resources and better meet the demands of international visitors touring China, said Deng.

China's tourism industry has maintained a 12.7-percent annual growth in recent years, higher than the average growth of its gross domestic product, according to statistics provided by the China National Tourism Administration.