Guiding light: Gao Zhiquan

"I think the nation's modern tourism first made a mark with the successful Beijing Asian Games in the early 1990s," said Gao Zhiquan, a former tour guide for China CYTS Tours who has been the company's vice-president since 2008.

"The sports gala gave Beijing and China recognition in the world and helped attract foreign visitors," the 52-year-old said.

In 1990, the Liaoning province native became a tour guide in Beijing after graduating from Pyongyang University of Construction and Building Materials Industries in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

However, the domestic market was not fully prepared for the surge in foreign tourists because the infrastructure, such as hotels and flights, was immature, Gao said.

"There was such a shortage of hotels of all kinds, let alone star-rated units, that we often scrambled for hotel rooms against rivals, such as China International Travel Services," he recalled.

"Back then, the Yanjing Hotel in Beijing was the most popular, and all the guides were jealous of their peers who successfully booked rooms there.

"It was the same with flights; tickets were in short supply, while planes were often delayed. We guides were never sure about tour schedules because we were only informed that the airline had provided travelers with tickets for flights overseas the night before departure."

Gao, who has been engaged in the tourist industry for nearly 30 years, was still thrilled when he recalled a 1994 trip from Dalian, Liaoning, to Yanji city in Jilin province to accompany a group from the Republic of Korea.

"There were more than 100 people in the group, and the plane, a Tupolev Tu-154, was fully booked, so there were no seats for me or the Korean group leader," he said.

"There were only a handful of flights at the time. You might wait two days for the next flight if you missed your plane, so the Korean group leader and I squatted in the plane's aisle and held on to the seat belts of passengers sitting on either side. It was a breakneck experience."

At the time, outbound tourism was in its infancy compared with the boom in inbound tourism in the early 1990s.

"Delegations authorized by the government were the core of outbound tourism, and countries in Southeast Asia were first choices at the time," he recalled.

"Before 1993, passports were only single-use items, so people had to apply for another if they went abroad again," he said.

Applying for a passport was a headache as it required piles of papers, including the traveler's ID card, household registration details, an invitation from someone in the destination country and financial statements.

"Things have changed now," Gao said.

"The passport application procedure has been greatly simplified, so only an ID card is needed, and passports are valid for 10 years. Traveling overseas is now a regular leisure activity for Chinese people."