A "four-star" public toilet was opened in July 2014 at a park in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Photo: CFP

 

When photographer Tom Carter from San Francisco first traveled to China in 2004, he encountered one of the most common culture shocks experienced by expat travelers: the Chinese squat toilet.

At a KTV, he was escorted to the WC, the universal sign for lavatory. At first, he didn't know what he was looking at. 

"It was just a small closet with a hole in the floor. On the wall was the now-ubiquitous painting of a topless Chinese girl holding a vase. Next to the hole was a rusty old congee can used as an ashtray," recalled Carter, who backpacked across China snapping portraits of ordinary people, later collected and published in a book titled CHINA: Portrait of a People.

Luckily, the toilet was clean.

But to do your business in one of China's public toilets can be rather unpleasant. The small, cramped space, the putrid smell, and the poor maintenance of public loos are the targets of frequent complaints from both foreign and domestic travelers.

In an effort to address the problem, Li Jinzao, chairman of the China National Tourism Administration announced at a tourism conference earlier this month that a "toilet revolution" will sweep the country, with 33,500 new restrooms being built and 25,000 being renovated.

"It will allow tourists to do their business in modernized 'three-star' toilets by 2017," said Li.

The campaign is being launched at a time when China's inbound tourism has seen numbers dwindle. Each year since the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, China has seen a decline in the number of foreign tourists, according to 2014 Annual Report on China Inbound Tourism published by the China Tourism Academy.

While figures of global international travelers have increased over this period, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the number of inbound tourists to China has steadily dropped.

Although public amenities such as toilets may affect tourists' experiences, expat travelers and industry insiders attribute political issues, air pollution, rising costs and visa and cyberspace policies as being more important factors that have contributed to the decline.

China's main appeal for foreign tourists remains its historical and cultural sites. Photo: Li Hao/GT

 

Talking toilets misses point?

According to The World Toilet Organization, sanitary toilet conditions and a greater number of public toilets at tourist attractions can help boost tourism in a country, the Xinhua News Agency reported in 2011.

While on the Internet, China's proposed "toilet revolution" has sparked debate about the merits of Western-style cisterns compared to Chinese-style squats, Carter gave a measured response.  

"Westerners dislike public squat toilets because they can be malodorous and messy," he said.

But he also noted that squatting has been shown to be a healthier position for defecation than sitting, and that squat toilets had the advantages of being easier to clean and rarely having pipe troubles. 

Carter was also bemused by the "toilet friendships" that can be struck up in China's public lavatories.

"Although in terms of privacy, it can be uncomfortable to have curious strangers in a communal WC striking up a conversation with the laowai," he said, "I personally recall several times some friendly fellow squatting next to me offered me a smoke and started to get chatty while I was suffering from having loose bowels. It was weird."

Carter said that he did not think China needed to install nicer toilets, but simply to install more public toilets in major cities.

"The biggest problem is that there are not enough places for one to relieve himself or herself, forcing people to pee in corners and poop in parks, which is a real blight on China's cosmopolitan cities."

British travel writer Jeremy Tredinnick, author of Xinjiang: China's Central Asia (2012) and managing editor at Odyssey Books & Maps, said the "toilet revolution" is a good thing for "middle-level package tourists."

"The top tourist attractions [in China] these days have Western toilets that are no worse than the average public toilet in the UK or US," said Tredinnick. But if people are backpacking and traveling off the beaten track, it was very different. 

"For large, unfit Westerners, this might be a big problem [using the usual squat style toilets or simply a single long communal channel], but for young backpackers it should not be any problem because the expectation is that this is what they will encounter, and they are prepared for it."

More serious deterrents

Zhong Ming, vice director in business development with tourism website Youpu.cn, said that there were other, more serious problems deterring tourists from coming to China. One of them, said Zhong, was the widely-publicized problem of China's air pollution.

"In 2012 and 2013, we tracked the figures [of inbound tourists]. Whenever serious air pollution in China was reported by the media, the number of people who enquired with us [about tourism to China] would drop dramatically," said Zhong.

In particular, said Zhong, potential tourists would make a point of not traveling to Beijing, a city that is frequently at the center of reports about China's air pollution.

Tredinnick and Carter however, disagreed that air pollution was the major factor dissuading tourists from traveling to China.

 "Most tourists don't imagine that staying a few days in a badly polluted city will affect them too much," said Tredinnick, who lives in Hong Kong where air pollution is also a regular topic of public concern.

Carter criticized the Western media's tendency to focus on China's environmental woes. "We encourage China's growth, but criticize the inevitable side effects of that growth," he said.

Carter and Tredinnick also blamed the downturn in China's inbound tourism to issues around bureaucratic control.

"Access to information is a chief concern among expats and tourists in China. If a Western tourist can't even check their e-mail during their weeklong holiday in China, and if foreign businessmen here can't conduct their business online, then they will just go somewhere they can," said Carter.

Tredinnick said that the difficulty of getting a visa was a major contributing factor.

"The best way to improve foreign tourism in China is to get rid of the visa requirements and the terrible bureaucracy that the government puts in place," Tredinnick said.

According to a Xinhua report published this month, more than 40,000 people made use of Beijing's 72 hour visa-free policy last year, but many expat travelers felt that three days was far too short to be able to fully enjoy everything that Beijing has to offer. 

Rising costs

Zhong said that China has also been losing ground in the Asia tourism market due to competition from other established destinations in Southeast Asia, in particular Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

"The cost of traveling to a place plays an important role in Western tourists choosing a destination," said Zhong. "Starting from 2013, a lot of European travelers have reported that the cost of traveling to China is more expensive than traveling to many other countries in Southeast Asia, due to the price rises in accommodation, tourist guides and food."

Zhong also said that in many South Asian countries, tourist infrastructure was more developed, and there were more English speakers, which meant "China had become less competitive." 

Carter said most of his travel experiences in China were pleasant and safe, but searching for accommodation could be frustrating.

"The Chinese government mandates that foreign tourists must stay at upscale hotels - anything under three-stars, we are not allowed in," said Carter, adding that this made traveling through China more expensive than it needed to be.

During the two years he backpacked across China, he said that he often "survived on the road by staying at flophouses costing 20 yuan." When he was rejected by no-star hotels that refused to break the rules, he had to sleep on bus station floors.

"I even had police come banging at my door at a small hotel in the middle of night and force me to check out," he said.

"Although youth hostels are more common in China now, they can only be found in popular tourist cities."

Other factors such as traffic congestion made travel inconvenient, said Carter.

"The streets can't accommodate the sheer volume of new cars. But among all these cars, few are taxis, so how can a tourist expect to get around?" Carter asked rhetorically.

Plugging the leak

Dai Bin, director of the China Tourism Academy, said in a speech delivered at a tourism forum in October last year that China was facing an unprecedented crisis in inbound travel, and that so far, there were no signs of a possible rebound.

Dai said that China had failed to keep up with the new market patterns in international tourism, instead clinging to old models.

To become more competitive in the international tourism market, said Dai, China needs a comprehensive re-branding, that improves perception of the country's social environment and national image, and offers a greater diversity of experiences for tourists. 

Zhong agreed that a campaign to re-brand China's image for tourists was urgently needed.

"Since the 1980s, the strategy for attracting foreigners has been an emphasis on ancient relics and traditional culture to pique tourists curiosity," said Zhong.

"But China has undergone rapid economic development and modernization [in recent decades], and a lot of the old things have gone. The promotion of tourism should also emphasize the modern facets of the country."

Tredinnick however, disagreed, saying that for tourists, it was still the traditions and history of China that made it stand out.

"China's main appeal for foreigners is its history and cultural sites - these should be kept as original as possible and not turned into theme parks, which has been happening in recent years," said Tredinnick. "There is a difference between careful restoration and wholesale 'Disney-fication.'"