SHANGHAI, Feb. 4 (Chinese media) -- Shanghai Tourism Trade Association on
Wednesday recommended that local travel agencies suspend business with the U.S.
Galaxy Travel Agency, which was involved in an accident in which seven people
died and 10 others were injured.
A bus, with 15 Chinese tourists, a driver and tour guide on board, crashed
last Friday on a road near the Hoover Dam in the U.S. state of Arizona. Six of
the tourists and a tour guide died and 10 others, including the driver, were
injured. The tourists were Chinese but the nationality of the driver and guide
is not clear.
On Monday another group organized by a Shanghai-based travel agency was
involved in an accident near Philadelphia. The tour bus, carrying 15 Chinese
tourists, a tour leader and a tour guide, backed up and collided with a minibus
behind it, leaving the tour guide and a tourist injured, according to the
Shanghai Tourism Administration Tuesday.
Both accidents involved the Texas-based Galaxy Travel Agency, said Huang
Guangrong, deputy head of Shanghai Tourism Trade Association on Wednesday.
"The first case is very complicated. So we hope business with the Galaxy
Travel Agencies can be suspended so that it can concentrate on the investigation
and dealing with the aftermath," Huang said.
The second batch of 11 relatives of the victims and injured, together with
a lawyer and a doctor, left Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 2:51 p.m.
Wednesday after the first group of 13 family members, accompanied by three
municipal government officials and one employee with Donghu Travel Agency, left
for the United States on Tuesday.
The purpose of the trip is to claim the bodies of six of the dead Chinese
tourists and visit seven others who remain in hospital. Two of the injured have
been released from hospital.
According to earlier reports, there were 15 Chinese tourists aboard the bus
involved in the fatal accident, in which the tourists were on their way back
from visiting the Grand Canyon as part of an optional trip. Five members of the
20-member group which had flown from Shanghai to San Francisco as part of a
package trip, chose not to take part in the bus tour.
The cause of the fatal accident is still under investigation. The China
Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. Ltd. (CPIC) has paid 1.85 million yuan (270,000
U.S. dollars) to families of the six dead from the Chinese mainland and Hong
Kong, according to the CPIC Shanghai Branch.
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