Foreign airlines’ services to or from China’s second-tier cities are facing increased local competition, which has led to a fall in profits on the routes, and more empty seats. According to figures from travel-aviation industry analysts, European carriers cut capacity on secondary China routes by 23% in the first seven months, and suspensions of those are likely to grow in the coming months. Early this year, British Airways (BA), for instance, closed its route from London Heathrow to Chengdu, after the airline said flights were “not commercially viable”, despite Chengdu being widely regarded as one of China’s most promising destinations for Europeans, well known for its hi-tech industry development. In October last year, Lufthansa also discontinued its route from Frankfurt to Shenyang. Flying on a Chinese carrier is a more natural choice, as Chinese travelers are more familiar with domestic airline brands and are more comfortable with the largely Mandarin-speaking cabin crew and ground staff, than they might find on foreign carriers, according to Corrine Png, Chief Executive of Crucial Perspective, a transport industry research firm. Earlier this month, United Airlines announced it would no longer be flying to Hangzhou, where China’s largest internet giant Alibaba is headquartered. Residents in second-tier cities were widely seen as becoming a lucrative customer source for foreign airlines, but according to experts the problem is that Chinese passengers prefer Chinese carriers, the South China Morning Post reports.

The first high-speed railway in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region was opened on August 3. The new rail service reduces the journey between Ulanqab and Hohhot from 56 minutes to 39 minutes. The bullet train runs at 250 kilometers per hour. Ten services are scheduled daily. The new 126-km line will be part of a 286.8-km high-speed railway that will connect Hohhot with Zhangjiakou, co-host of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, in Hebei province, and will be connected to the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway, reducing travel time between Hohhot and Beijing from an average nine hours to less than three hours. Last year, China’s high-speed network reached 22,000 km, accounting for 65% of the world’s total high-speed rail. According to a plan released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China will expand high-speed rail to 30,000 km by 2020, linking 80% of its major cities. By 2030, the network is planned to link all cities with populations of more than 500,000.

China has issued national guidelines governing bike-sharing operations to address mounting complaints over an accumulation of millions of bikes on city streets. Users of bike-sharing services should register under their real names, controls on the parking of bikes will be tightened, offenders will be punished, and the use of the bikes by children under 12 is prohibited. China has around 70 bike-sharing brands, which have put more than 16 million bicycles on the streets and attracted more than 130 million users. By the end of June, the industry had registered 106 million customers, just a year after Mobike launched its services in Shanghai in April 2016. Around 14% of China’s 751 million internet users have now used smartphones to rent a bike. The industry has attracted billions in investment from the likes of Warburg Pincus, DST Global, Tencent and Alibaba.

Beijing-based bike-sharing firm Mobike announced the launch of bike-rental services in London, with a plan to operate 750 bikes in September. The company plans to expand to 200 cities globally. As Mobike is set to cover more countries, the company will explore more payment methods. The bikes are produced in China and then exported to overseas markets. Rival Ofo said it plans to operate a total of 6,000 shared bikes in Bangkok by the end of September. Now Mobike has rolled out more than 6 million bikes in over 150 cities globally, while Ofo said it has over 100 million users.

Conglomerate HNA Group has disclosed its ownership structure for the first time following questions over its opaque shareholding and the Chinese government clampdown on overseas acquisitions. The company, based in the Hainan provincial capital of Haikou, has expanded since its founding in 1993 with just four aircraft to almost 2,000 planes under operation and management. In the process, it also went on a global buying spree, owning CNY1 trillion of assets, including stakes in Hilton Worldwide Holdings and Deutsche Bank. In a statement on July 24, HNA said it counted Hainan Province Cihang Foundation, Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation, 12 individual shareholders and Hainan Airlines Holding as its shareholders. Businessman Guan Jun, mentioned in a June 2 Financial Times article as among the company’s shareholders, was not listed. In an interview with the South China Morning Post last month, HNA Founder Chen Feng said Guan “holds a tiny stake in the company” but was not a significant shareholder. The two charities own 52% of HNA collectively. One is set up in New York and the other is established under the Hainan provincial government. Chen and HNA co-founder Wang Jian are Directors of Hainan Province Cihang Foundation. According to the statement, Chen and Wang hold the highest stakes with 14.98% each. The statement also said Guan had donated the shares to the charity and no longer holds any stake in the company. HNA said in the statement that while it is a private company with no obligation to disclose its ownership, it would “respect and appreciate the desire for transparency in this regard”.

Three Chinese banks, who were among the eight largest providers of credit lines to HNA as of 2015, have decided to stop extending new loans to HNA. A dearth of fresh credit could further restrain HNA’s ambitions as Chinese regulators clamp down on offshore deals to stem capital outflows and shore up the yuan, the South China Morning Post reports. HNA, which has announced more than USD40 billion of acquisitions spanning six continents since the start of 2016, said its financial position remains “strong” and noted that its debt-to-asset ratio decreased for a seventh straight year in fiscal 2016. HNA reported CNY172.5 billion of cash and cash equivalents at the end of last year. It also disclosed CNY493.7 billion of debt and said it had CNY611 billion of committed credit lines from banks, of which around 40% was unused.

Chinese tourists are expected to make 200 million outbound trips in 2020, a 48% increase from last year’s 135 million, led by Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea and Japan as the most-visited destinations, according to CLSA. The cosmetics, gaming, luxury and online sectors are likely to be the biggest winners, with spending expected to grow 64% to USD429 billion in 2021 from last year’s level. “While 2016 was challenging, impacted by terrorist attacks in Europe and weaker spending in the U.S., the tide turned in the third quarter, we believe largely driven by wealthy Chinese consumers,” CLSA Analysts Oliver Matthew and Jon Oh wrote in a report, their fifth tracking China’s outbound tourism trends since 2005. “Other driving factors affecting Chinese tourist numbers included extra holidays, eased travel restrictions, and greater desire for experiencing different cultures and activities.” Hong Kong was still the number one destination for mainland Chinese tourists between 2013 and 2017, followed by Thailand, South Korea, Macao and Japan, the South China Morning Post reports.