Travel as a Business: The Making of Modern Chinese Tourism

On August 12, 1923, in the local news section of the Shenbao newspaper, a brief announcement appeared with the headline “Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank adds a Travel Department.”¹ This new department planned to sell tickets for different Chinese government railways and to offer pick-up services at train stations and steamship docks. Initiating these services in Shanghai and Hangzhou, the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (hereafter Shanghai Bank) intended to gradually expand their Travel Department to the bank’s other locations. Although easily missed amid other miscellaneous local news, this short paragraph recorded the beginning of China’s modern tourism business. From