Turkmenistan tourism gets boost with service center

A visa service center for Chinese citizens to apply for visas to visit Turkmenistan was launched Friday in Beijing, providing more convenient services such as preview, and deliver documents to the embassy and translations for Chinese travelers.

In 2017, fewer than 10,000 Chinese tourists visited Turkmenistan, and about 14,400 travelers from Turkmenistan visited China.

"China and Turkmenistan are both ancient countries with rich cultures and histories, and their traveling resources complement each other," said Feng Litao, deputy director of the promotion and international cooperation department at the China National Tourism Administration.

"The number of travelers from China and Turkmenistan who visited the other country is still very small. As an important node of the ancient Silk Road and today’s Belt and Road Initiative, Turkmenistan has beautiful sceneries and exotic culture. There is a significant potential of further strengthening tourism cooperation between the two countries," he said.

Last year, 130 million Chinese traveled abroad, a 7 percent jump year-on-year. During the same time, 139 million foreigners came to China, up 0.8 percent over the earlier period.

Also on Friday, a number of major travel agencies in China, including China International Travel Service Ltd and Caissa Tourism Group, signed cooperation agreements with travel agencies from Turkmenistan.

Chinese travel agencies said they plan to develop and promote more travel routes in Turkmenistan and other nearby countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.