Tourists are taking a revenge of sorts on Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. During the G20 Summit earlier this month, most of the city, including its scenic West Lake, was cordoned off to regular tourists as security was tightened for the heads of state attending the meetings.

For the just-ended Mid-Autumn Festival and next month’s National Day holidays, it is the tourists’ turn to take over China’s most famous scenic city. Many of them are drawn to a performance adapted from the spectacular G20 gala.

The number of bookings by domestic visitors travelling on package or self-guided tours to Hangzhou skyrocketed by 218 per cent from Sept 10 through Sunday, said Lvmama, an online travel-service provider. The G20 Leaders’ Summit ended on Sept 5.

World leaders arrive for the G20 Summit in Hangzhou

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Reuters, MCI

Ctrip, the country’s largest online travel agency, reported a surge of 150 per cent year-on-year from Sept 13 to 17.

After the G20, some travel agencies immediately launched a one-day tour of Hangzhou, mainly featuring the conference venue of the G20 summit and the part of West Lake where the G20 evening gala, which combined dance and lighting effects, took place.

“We’ve never launched a one-day Hangzhou tour before. The tour product was created upon consumers’ request, and the 200 openings were snapped up quickly,” said Xu Xiao, a tour guide in Shangrao, Jiangxi province, with Shanghai Wenrui International Travel Agency.

“The information about this new route to Hangzhou published on our company’s WeChat platform was viewed more than five times the average. We estimate that the route will be popular for at least half a year,” she added.

Xu guided a tour of about 100 people from Shangrao to Hangzhou on Friday. She said most of the visitors had been to Hangzhou before, but they wanted to watch the performance based on the G20 gala.

Security guards at the scene said more than 100,000 people watched the performance during the national holiday from Thursday through Saturday.

“Hangzhou was overloaded with tourists on those days, and we had a hard time finding a seat in the restaurant and a parking place,” said Xu. “We intended to watch another fountain show with lights and music after dinner, but we missed it because of traffic congestion.”

Tao Jinxian was one of the tourists guided by Xu. She said there also was an amazing light show on both banks of the Ganjiang River, a major branch of the Yangtze River, in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province, but the one in Hangzhou was different because the summit venue is in the background.

“What I see now is what the leaders of 20 countries saw. The trip was well worth it,” Tao said.

Hotels and restaurants in Hangzhou witnessed a major boom, which was expected to continue.

Du Lin, director of sales and marketing for Hangzhou InterContinental Hotel, the main venue for the B20 Summit held one day before the G20 Summit, said rooms were fully booked during the Mid-Autumn holiday. For the upcoming National Day holiday, which runs from Oct 1 to 7, bookings are so far 40 per cent higher year-on-year.

Kuiyuanguan, a restaurant in Hangzhou, reported a year-on-year rise of 54 per cent in sales revenue during the past holiday. “We predict the rise will continue during the National Day holiday,” said Zhang Delin, the restaurant’s office director.

Ctrip data showed that by Sunday, the number of bookings to Hangzhou for the National Day holiday had already doubled the number from last year, and many of those who placed orders were from such distant places as Tianjin and Chengdu.

Concerted effort by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore to tackle piracy and robberies in nearby waters saw the number of incidents nosedive in the first six months of the year.

The countries pumped more resources into patrol activities, and one even zeroed in on prime suspects and issued them stiff warnings.

Their activities pulled the number of such incidents in the Straits of Singapore and Malacca down to just one in the first six months.

This was after a spike in the numbers last year when it hit 104 incidents, up from the 48 in 2014, according to the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre.

Malaysian and Indonesian authorities have improved their capability to address such incidents, Dr Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), noted.

For instance, by October last year, the Royal Malaysian Navy had set up a Rapid Deployment Team to tackle crimes like ship hijacks quickly, according to the Bernama news agency.

And in January this year, Tempo news reported that an Indonesian warship KRI Imam Bonjol-838 had been deployed to increase the country’s naval patrol presence in the Strait of Malacca.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and local enforcement agencies – the Police Coast Guard and Republic of Singapore Navy – also contributed.

Captured & beaten by pirates

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The Straits Times, Internet screengrabs

They “worked with regional enforcement authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia to deter incidents through regular sharing of intelligence and stepped up patrols”, the MPA said.

The three countries also stepped up checks for unregistered ships around ports and on ships entering and leaving ports, and this has deterred some would-be offenders, said ReCAAP deputy director Nicholas Teo.

Most of last year’s robberies occurred around a privately-run anchorage in the Nipa area south-west of Singapore, said Tim Wilkins, regional manager for Asia-Pacific at the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners.

There, large ships carrying oil from the Middle East often transfer the oil they are carrying to stationary smaller tankers which then transport the oil around the region, he added.

“There are a lot of vessels at anchor and that makes them a relatively easy target and relatively close to certain smaller Indonesian islands where theft and robberies can be launched from.”

Stern warnings to suspects in Indonesian islands were also a major factor, noted Dr Sam Bateman, an adviser to the Maritime Security Programme at RSIS.

The majority of the cases last year took place in Indonesian waters, he said.

The attacks were carried out mainly by a few gangs from villages in Pulau Karimun Besar, Pulau Batam and Indonesian islands close to the south of the straits, he added.

In response to this, police tracked down the suspects with help from the villages and issued stern warnings to them.

They were told to stop their illegal activities or they could face arrest, Dr Bateman said.

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