Xiamen Tourism Bureau plans to construct and renovate a total of 50 tourist toilet toilet facilities, deputy director Chen Guilin noted. Furthermore, the construction work is due to start before the end of May. The toilets are expected to come into service by the end of October.
Meanwhile in the short term, residents and tourists in Scenic areas will be able to find nearby toilets with one click on their cellphones. Chen Guilin said that the local Tourism Bureau would push forward its "Internet Plus Tourist Toilets" strategy, which will compile information on tourist toilets all over the city into a database, develop a tourist toilets GPS system and inform tourists and residents of the locations of tourist toilets in a timely manner.
In 2015, visitors to Xiamen topped 60 million (60,358,500) for the first time, up 13.08 percent year-on-year. Before, tourist revenue was a little over 80 billion yuan (83.236 billion yuan) and it has now surged 15.27 percent compared to 2014.
However, tourists have long been complaining about the lack of toilets. During the May Day holiday, Mrs. Zhang from Zhejiang Province said, "We walked a long time only to find a long queue before the toilet". Mrs Xue from Shanxi Province also added that she had to spend 20 minutes waiting to get into a toilet in Zengcuo'an.
Experts point out that the building space for women's toilets should ideally be three times that of men's, and the majority of tourist toilets in the country fail to meet this requirement, which should be improved in the future.
Last March, the China National Tourism Administration launched a nationwide three-year "tourism toilet revolution", which will build more than 5,7000 new public toilets across the country. In addition, it will launch a "Tourist Toilet Construction & Management" initiative in 2017, aimed at bringing free and sanitary toilets to scenic areas all over the country. If the toilets don’t meet standards, the scenic spots or hotels will be disqualified from the rating assessment.
China announced and implemented on May 15 a policy allowing visa-free entry of foreign tourist groups aboard cruise ships via all cruise ship ports along the country's coastline.
China and Georgia are set to waive visa requirements for travelers starting May 28.
