A growing number of Chinese visitors offer huge market potential, Fu Jing reports from Athens.

Before 56-year-old Elena Kountoura moved into politics, she was an internationally-renowned model in Paris and Athens, and a seasoned traveler to China, having visited in 1989 and 1998 to promote fashion.

She was struck by how wide the roads were in Beijing when she first visited, and by how there were so many bicycles. The second time, she was amazed at how cars had replaced the bicycles.