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To the city of GuangZhou which teems with famous old-timer travel agencies, the year of 2006 means full-scale invasion of a troop of foreign-funded travel agencies in the local market.

Yesterday, GZL International Travel Service Ltd. set foot in Yunfu City and founded Yunfu GZL, its 100th branches in Guangdong Province, by way of franchise, thus becoming the first travel agency from another city to enter Yunfu market by way of intangible capital. This marks that GZL has finished distributing its branches in important cities in the Pearl River Delta before the end of this year. Prior to this, Guangdong Nanhu International Travel Service officially opened its first branch in Zhongshan City at the end of October. Many travel agencies in GuangZhou are accelerating to lay out their business network with the magic weapon of low prices around the Pearl River Delta of rich potential profit.

According to its WTO commitments, China will allow establishment of 100% foreign-funded travel agencies and annul all restrictions on establishment of branches and divisions by joint-venture travel agencies no later than Dec. 31st, 2005. This signifies that foreign-funded travel agencies will gain full access to China's tourism market in 2006. According to industry sources, large travel agencies have been rushing to complete their network in second-tier cities by the end of this year, indicating that Guangzhou's travel agencies have expanded their territory from first-tier cities to second-tier ones. As more and more GuangZhou travel agencies vie for a slice of the pie in the fertile Pearl River Delta, competition in the tourism industry will become more and more furious, which will contribute to improving tourism structure in Pearl River Delta and strengthening competitiveness of local travel agencies against entry of foreign-funded travel agencies.