RETIREE Pua Song Kuan loves visiting China. Hooked to its culture, food and reasonable prices, the father of five has returned to the country no fewer than 25 times since first touring Shanghai and Jiangnan in 1984.

It's easy to find him poring over newspapers to look for the latest tour package to his favourite destination.

But discovering new places to visit is no mean feat - not for someone who has already gone to 20 of the 22 provinces in the country.

Retiree Pua Song Kuan, 71, and his wife Kee Tuang Noi, 60, at Hu Kou waterfall. Mr Pua has toured China no fewer than 25 times since 1984.

"I visit China a lot, so it's a challenge to find new tour packages," says Mr Pua, 71.

He usually travels on tour groups with his wife and a group of friends, spending around $1,500 to $1,800 on average.

Still, this frequent flyer to China has been able to satisfy his needs. His latest trip was a 10-day tour to the northern China province of Shanxi in October last year.

"It was an interesting cultural place with great historical flavour. Not too developed," he says. "I enjoyed myself very much."

With more Singaporeans like him visiting China regularly, travel agencies here have been expanding their itineraries.

Flip through their newspaper advertisements and you will see offers spanning from Heilongjiang in the north-east to Xinjiang in the far west.

This is a result of the country developing at breakneck speed, offering travel opportunities for new and repeat travellers alike, notes Chan Brothers Travel spokesman Annie Yeo.

"New locations are being discovered every day and made accessible to tourists. Furthermore, China is affordable," she says.

The price for a 10-day tour to Beijing is around $800 - cheaper than similar week-long tours to Taiwan ($1,000), Korea ($1,400) and Japan ($1,700).

So while traditional favourites like Beijing, Shanghai and Jiuzhaigou continue to sell well, other cities are emerging as must-go places.

Hu Kou waterfall in the Yellow River basin of Shanxi province.

Mr He Ming, assistant director of the China National Tourist Office (CNTO) here, observes that places like Guizhou, Sichuan, Tibet and the Silk Road are becoming increasingly popular among Singaporeans.

There are no figures available for each region, but for the whole of China, visitor numbers from Singapore have been steadily rising, with the exception of 2003 when Sars struck a blow to the country's tourism, he tells Life!.

He says that in the first 11 months of last year, there were more than 812,000 visits made by Singaporean tourists to China.

This is an increase of more than 11 per cent over the same period in 2006. It is also double the tourist figures of 2000, when fewer than 400,000 Singaporeans visited China.

Tour agencies say the tourist profile has changed too. While they consisted mainly of older, Chinese-educated people in the past, in the last five years the young, English-speaking crowd has joined in as well. CTC Holidays even started tours to China for Muslim travellers in May last year.

HARD-BOILED OR SUNNY-SIDE-UP?: A famous hot spring in Tengchong called the Big Boiling Bowl in the Sea of Heat. This hot spring reaches a temperature of 97 deg C and locals offer visitors eggs cooked in it.

Trailing dinosaurs

AND agencies will continue to launch more destinations in China because travellers are savvier now and continue to seek new experiences, says Ms Joycelyn Su, CTC's vice-president of marketing for outbound tours.

"New regions offer a different type of travel experience for consumers because of their relatively unexplored landscape," she says.

One example is the Shanxi package that Mr Pua went on, which was started less than a year ago by CTC Holidays. A province steeped in history, Shanxi is famous for its relics and cultural cities like Datong and Pingyao.

Similarly, Chan Brothers Travel began visiting Tengchong - a volcanic zone that boasts hot springs and more than 100 volcanoes - in Yunnan last October.

UOB Travel Planners is considering the launch of a package to discover the trail of dinosaurs in the north-west province of Gansu, where many fossils and footprints have been unearthed.

There is also an increasing number of customers who visit Fujian, Meixian and Hainan in the last two years to search for their roots, says Ms Alicia Seah, vice-president of leisure travel at UOB Travel Planners.

The agency sent around 350 passengers to these destinations last year, a 15 per cent increase from the year before.

The need to come up with new itineraries for China comes as no surprise to Mr Robert Khoo, chief executive of the National Association of Travel Agents Singapore.

China is now the second most popular destination for Singaporeans, he points out. In 2006, it edged out perennial favourite Thailand for the No. 2 spot with a visitorship of more than 827,000 to Thailand's 818,000 but trails top-placed Malaysia, which had more than 9.6 million visitors.

"It's a big country that you can't see at one go, so you will have to go back many times," he says.

"If the agencies want to attract the same group of customers back to China, they will have to source for new destinations."

The upcoming Olympics will also be a shot in the arm for China's tourism industry.

Historically, the spillover effect from the Olympics into a country's tourism industry is strong as infrastructure and hotels are built, notes Mr Khoo.

He says, however, that the increased awareness may lead to congested hotels and higher prices during the event itself, so non-sports fans may be better off avoiding those two heady weeks in August this year.

When deciding on a new destination to launch, agency product planners will either seek the recommendations of Chinese land operators or suss out the buzz on a destination they have heard about themselves.

But there are a few things to look out for, agencies say.

"Our most important considerations are accessibility and accommodation. You may be able to get there, but is it an uncomfortable ride and unsuitable for the elderly.

"If you want to stay overnight, is there accommodation that is suitable for Singaporean standards? These are factors that we have to consider," says Ms Yeo.

Still, with a country of its size, the sky is the limit for China's attractions, with agents saying that there are still plenty of unexplored areas and undiscovered relics.

"With its mix of culture and nature, China appeals to people of different interests. There will be a lot of room for growth," says Ms Seah.

That is good news for housewife Valerie Lim, 50. The mother of three caught the China bug more than a year ago after she visited Jiangnan in November 2006. She has since gone back three more times - to Beijing, Xi'an, Tibet and Sichuan.

And later this month she will be going to Harbin with her doctor husband, who is 56 and semi-retired.

She says the main appeal of the country for her is that it is now relatively developed, clean and safe.

"Plus it is easier for someone my age to adapt to the similar food and language. If we have the money, we plan to visit the whole of China."

chengwee@sph.com.sg

Top photo: The Hanging Monastery at Mount Hengshan, which dates back over 1,400 years, sits precariously on the cliffs in Shanxi.

BORED with Beijing? Sick of Shanghai? Here are some alternative destinations in China to check out: Where: Tengchong in Yunnan province, famous for its hot springs and volcanoes What tour: 7D Kunming/Dali/Tengchong in Yunnan province. Highlights in Tengchong include Waterland, Hot Sea and the cluster of volcanoes in Tengchong. You can experience folk customs at the towns of Ruili and Mangshi, which border Myanmar. Cost: From $628 Call Chan Brothers on 6438-8880 Where: Shanxi province, steeped in history and famous for its ancient relics and culture What tour: 8D Mount Wutai/Pingyao/Datong in Shanxi province. Highlights include the Yungang Grottoes, which are decorated with Buddhist carvings. You can ascend Mount Wutai, one of China's four sacred mountains, and see a Qing dynasty residence which served as the set for the movie Raise The Red Lantern. Cost: From $898 Call CTC Holidays on 6532-0532 Where: Maoxian in Sichuan province, home to the Qiang ethnic minority, whose history can be traced to the Shang dynasty more than 3,000 years ago. What tour: 10D Jiuzhaigou/Leshan/Maoxian in Sichuan province. Highlights in Maoxian include Diexihaizi, a 98m-deep lake that was formed after an earthquake in 1933, and the 2,000-year-old Taoping Qiang Village, where 98 families still live in connected houses that form a solid structure Cost: From $838 Call SA Tours on 6532-4111 Where: Tibet and the north-west province of Qinghai What tour: 9D Xining/Lhasa/Qingzang along the Qinghai-Lhasa railway, which connects China to Tibet. Highlights include Potala Palace in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and Qinghai lake, the largest lake in China. Includes a ride on the Qinghai-Lhasa railway, which climbs to 5,000m above sea level and is the highest railway in the world. Cost: From $2,288 Call Dynasty Travel on 6338-4455