A local tourist in China has been blacklisted for 10 years for inappropriate behaviour after his photo sitting on the shoulders of a Red Army statue went viral online.
The Chinese tourist, Li Wenchun, climbed on top of the Red Army statue at Shengli Shan (Victory Hill) in Northwest China's Shaanxi province for a photo last month.
His photo sitting on the shoulders of one of the statues was posted on social media by a passersby which came under sharp criticism.
Li is the first Chinese tourist to be blacklisted by China's National Tourism Administration after the administration officially announced rules last month to establish a blacklist of tourists who demonstrate inappropriate or illegal behaviour.
The regulation comes amid growing concern about the ill manners of Chinese tourists both at home and abroad, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
In December, four Chinese tourists who threw hot water and noodles on a Thai flight attendant and threatened to blow up the plane were the first batch of offenders to be blacklisted by NTA.
The new regulation released last month said that the records of misbehaving tourists would be kept for up to two years.
It specified six types of behaviors to be blacklisted, from interrupting public transportation, damaging private or public property, disrespecting local customs, sabotaging historical exhibits, to engaging in gambling or pornographic activities.
The rules did not specify what punishments will come after the blacklist, but the person's information is very likely to be passed to police, customs officials and banks.
Besides blacklisting Li, the NTA excluded star-rated ranking for the next two years for the scenic spot, where the incident took place.
Right ahead of the May Day holiday, the tourism administration issued another couple of industry standards to give tour guides the right to report bad behaviour to the authorities.
China is the world's largest outbound tourist market since 2012. In 2013, Chinese tourists spent USD 129 billion abroad, more than any other source country in the world.
In 2014, Chinese tourists made 3.6 billion domestic trips, an increase of 10 per cent. The number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad also increased by 19.5 per cent year on year to 109 million in 2014, according to Xinhua.
