Some 16 million Chinese travelers trekked overseas in the first seven months of 2004, up a blistering 63.7 percent from the same period of time last year, according to statistics disclosed this week. “In 2003, China became the Asian nation with the largest number of tourists traveling overseas, going Japan one better,” He Guangwei, chief of the National Tourism Management Office, was quoted as saying in China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.

Jeffrey Cutajar took over as Chief of Marketing and Promotion for the Malta Tourism Agency on a pledge to lead and coordinate the work of Maltese travel companies overseas. Mr. Cutajar will also supervise management, marketing, publicity and public relations in an effort to paint a brighter picture of this Mediterranean travel destination.

The Alberto Delgado Hotel & Tourism School in the central province of Villa Clara is getting set to accommodate more than 400 youngsters who should join the ranks of Cuba’s hospitality industry in that region where the ever-growing number of tourism investments is demanding a workforce of approximately 3,000 well-trained employees.

Tourism officials from the Mexican world-class destination of Cancun are on the lookout amid a wave of robberies that have occurred in several hotels.

Armando Mujica Romo took over this week as new chief of the Planning and Evaluation Department for Mexico City´s Government Office. The premier goal for Mr. Romo´s office is to do the profiling of tourists that visit the nation´s capital in an effort to know their traditions, habits, motivations and level of satisfaction, especially in the case of Latin American travelers.

A recent report put together by organizations of human rights activists, physicians, jurists and tourism experts –at the request of Paris’s Ministries of Tourism and Family- hints at the signing of agreements between France and such nations as Mexico, Brazil and the Dominican Republic in an effort to put up a fight against sexual tourism and child exploitation. The document was revealed Thursday by the French government and proposes the European country to reach bilateral accords with nations that are hit hard by sexual tourism, like Morocco, Egypt, Madagascar, Senegal, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Rumania and Albany.