In a monthly newsletter from the China National Tourist Office in New York, Director Yaping Xue unveiled several new developments taking place in the People’s Republic. Firstly, from January to June, U.S. arrivals to China had 562,900 tourists, 280,900 business travelers and some 190,000 other types of travelers such as VFR for a total of 1,034,390 U.S. arrivals.

            This year, the China International Travel Mart (CITM) will be held in the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC), from Nov. 15 to 18. The Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Clippers will play two games in China on Oct. 11 at the MasterCard Center in Beijing and Oct. 14 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai.

China's Hainan Airlines (HNA) will begin service next year on the route between Chicago O'Hare and Beijing. Hainan says it will begin nonstop service with four weekly flights in the second quarter of 2013, a move that comes after the U.S. Department of Transportation approved the carrier's application to provide new regularly scheduled service between the cities. Hainan plans to use Boeing 787 Dreamliners on the route.

China Southern Airlines (CZ) will operate an Airbus A380 on its Guangzhou-Los Angeles route from Oct.12 to accelerate its international expansion pace. CZ ordered five Airbus A380s and introduced its first A380 last October. It has taken delivery of three A380s, which operate on two domestic routes, Beijing (PEK)-Guangzhou and PEK-Hong Kong. CZ is scheduled to introduce its fourth A380 in the fourth quarter.

China will build 82 new airports and expand 101 existing ones during the current five-year plan, which ends in 2015. By then, China will have 230 airports, up from the current 182, according to Huang Min, director of infrastructure at the National Development and Reform Commission. Most of the new facilities will be feeder airports in the central and western portions of the country. About 80 percent of the population will be within 100 kilometers of an airport by the middle of this decade. Additional building is projected to increase that percentage nine points by 2020.