Chinese travelers, while saddened by the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, may not be put off by taking a flight abroad.
The fate of Flight MH370 carrying 239 passengers and crew remains a mystery more than a week after it took off from Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. An estimated 154 Chinese nationals were on board the plane.
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"There are so many expert opinions and tips about how to survive an airplane crash or which seat is the safest but all that for me is empty talk," said Lu Qing, a 26-year old admin worker in Nanjing, a city in eastern China.
"Flying is still the safest form of transportation and yes tragedies happen here and there but it will not turn me away," she added. "None of my friends are cancelling their trips. I wouldn't because flying is still safe statistically."
Rising disposable incomes in the world's second biggest economy and an easing in travel restrictions by the government have helped boost outward bound travel from China in recent years.
The number of mainlanders traveling abroad is expected to hit 200 million per year by 2020, double last year's figure, the brokerage CLSA said in a report in January.
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"For the families, this event is a tragedy, but once you get past it people do continue to travel and the industry is quite resilient," said a spokesman for the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) in London.
He added that two events that did have a global impact on air travel because of the level of uncertainty they caused were the 1991 Iraq war and the September 11 terror attacks in the U.S.
"There's unlikely to be a global impact [from the missing plane] but perhaps Chinese travel to Malaysia could see a short-term blip over the next four-to-six months," the WTTC spokesman said.
Malaysia has come under criticism in China for its handling of the missing jet. Relatives of the Chinese passengers who traveled to Kuala Lumpur have expressed their anger and frustration with the investigation with some throwing water bottles at Malaysian officials.
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Malaysia attracted 1.45 million Chinese tourists between January and September last year, a rise of almost 33 percent compared with the same period the previous year, according to the country's tourist board.
Yao Lingyun, a 36-year-old Chinese public health expert, said the missing plane has made her rethink travel plans in general.