According to Yunnan Tourist Bureau, the ten major tourist source countries for Yunnan province in the year 2008 were Thailand, Japan, Korean, Malaysia, Singapore, America, France, Germany, Great Britain and Swiss.

To be specified, 185,390 tourists from Thailand came to Yunnan province for a travel in 2008 with a yearly increase of 94.64%, which made Thailand the biggest tourist source of Yunnan province. 138988 Japanese tourists travelled to Yunnan province last year, which maintained Japan as the second largest tourist source of Yunnan province though the numbers decreased by 5.73% compared with that of the previous year. It was the first time that more than 100 thousand American tourists paid visits to Yunnan province in 2008 which made America the sixth largest tourist source for Yunnan province. It is worth a mention that Yunnan province saw a 659% yearly increase in Indian tourists’ numbers to 25,132 for the opening of the direct flight between Kunming and Calcutta at the end of 2007, which showed India’s great potential of being a big tourist source market to Yunnan province. (Reported by Xiang Xinquan, edited and translated by Sam)