Unless China radically implements measures and steps to salvage what remains of its environment, it may have to expect and get used to dwindling tourist numbers.

The terraced rice paddies of Yuanyang County, Yunnan (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Jialiang Gao)

According to a report by the Associated Press last Tuesday, the number of foreign visitors including business travelers to China during the first half of 2013 dropped by 5 percent to just under 13 million versus a year ago. The China National Tourism Administration attributed the reasons to the worsening smog, the sluggish global economy, a stronger Chinese currency and bird flu. But more on the first and last factors.

"All the news which is coming from China concerning the non-touristic things are bad, frankly speaking," Frano Ilic who works for a travel agency in Munich, Germany told the AP.

"You are reading about smog. You are reading about political things."

Overall, according to the China National Tourism Administration, the number of visitors from Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas dropped.

A section of the Great Wall of China at Jinshanling

Per state, Beijing, where the Great Wall and the Imperial Palace could be found, experienced the largest decline. According to the Beijing Tourism Administration, foreign visitors to the Chinese capital were only 1.9 million from January to June, a plunge of 15 percent compared from the same period in 2012.

Apart from Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen, a prosperous port city in the southeast, likewise suffered dropping visitor numbers.

The total number of foreigners to Beijing jumped by 13 percent in January compared with a year ago. But because the smog hit China in January, it immediately gave off a ripple effect. In February, the total number of foreigners going to the capital fell 37 percent compared with February 2012.

"The air pollution trends in China will be difficult to reverse and their impacts will be significantly negative on the tourism industry," Tim Tyrrell, former director of the Center for Sustainable Tourism at Arizona State University, told AP. Mr Tyrell futher stated that a reversal of the impacts would occur if "the government can make significant improvements in air quality and enthusiastically convey these improvements to international travelers."