Shanghai voted safest city by Chinese tourists

Shanghai has been voted the most secure city in the country by Chinese tourists in a recent survey.

Among the thousands of Chinese tourists, 61 percent voted Shanghai as the safest city in China, closely followed by Beijing and Hangzhou in East China’s Zhejiang Province with 59.6 percent and 54.4 percent of the votes respectively, according to a recent survey by China’s biggest online travel company Ctrip, news website thepaper.cn reported on Friday.

Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region and Macao were also ranked in the top 10 most secure cities in China.

Shanghai in recent years has heightened its security standards and armed police patrol until late at night along the landmark Bund riverfront area, thepaper.cn reported.

The survey also found that Chinese tourists would judge the security of a region by the friendliness of local residents, the risk of being swindled and the efficiency of local government.

Meanwhile, 67.1 percent of Chinese tourists who responded to the Ctrip survey considered China as the most secure country in the world, followed by Japan and Singapore.

“Chinese tourists have been paying more attention to security when booking a trip, so the major travel agencies are also investing more in security,” said Shi Yuzhuan, chief marketing officer with Ctrip’s tourism division, thepaper.cn reported.

The China National Tourism Administration said in May tourism will remain a magnet for private capital, predicting direct investment will jump more than 20 percent from last year to 1.5 trillion yuan ($218.07 billion) this year.