Chinese exhibitors at world travel market

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INTRO

The biggest world travel exhibition - the World Travel Market, opened on Monday in London.

The four-day event has attracted exhibitors from all over the world, including more than 50 Chinese provincial tourism bureaus and travel agencies.

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John Craven, a famous BBC television host, has been named a "Panda Ambassador" by the Sichuan Tourism Bureau and was invited to attend the show.

He said the award was a great honour and he will try his best to promote the concept of giant panda protection and the relationship between China and the UK.

SOUNDBITE(ENGLISH): JOHN CRAVEN, BBC host:

"My main role is the pandas and as a panda ambassador. I am going to telling people in this country exactly what's being done to protect them for the future. I plan to make an ambassador royal visit, to the two pandas at the edinburgh zoo and then next year, I am going to be going back to Chengdu. I am going to be leading some groups of buddhist tourists around the panda base at Chengdu and the one Bi Feng Xia as well in the mountains and I am going to be meeting a lot of veteran teams and discovering exactly what new development is happening in the world of panda protection."

China has experienced rapid growth in the tourist sector in recent years, and is now one of the world's fastest growing tourism markets.

Through the annual event, Chinese exhibitors aim to attract more tourists from the UK and Europe countries.

SOUNDBITE(CHINESE): YANG QIANG, China National Tourist Office, London:

"We hope we can improve the Chinese travel image through this exhibition. China National Tourist Office has adopted two measures, one is to show our new logo for China Tourism - the 'Beautiful China' logo. The other is the China 72 hour transit visa-free policy. The new rules are open to 46 countries across the world. I believe more cities will be covered by this policy in the future."

SOUNDBITE(CHINESE): MEI QIJIE, Deputy Chairman, Guangdong Tourism Administration:

"We hope to promote Guangdong's tourism market through this platform. Tourism in Guangdong has seen great changes in recent years, we have a 72-hour visa-free landing option at Baiyun Airport, and 144-hour visa facilitation for foreign tourists from 10 cities in Guangdong to Hong Kong and Macao."

Last year, the World travel market saw more than 1.85 trillion pounds of deals inked.