Published on : Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Last year, Chinese travelers made a total of 140 million outbound trips, going up 13.5 percent from the previous year’s 129 million, as per data from the China Tourism Academy (CTA).
Chinese travelers made their trips to 157 countries and regions, and spent more than $120 billion, compared to $100 billion in 2017.
China has become a main contributor to the global tourism industry, both in terms of the number of trips and the amount of money they spend, according to Dai Bin, head of the CTA.
CTA said that regarding choice of destinations, Chinese tourists are increasingly attracted to visit less popular areas like the Antarctica, which could attract as many as 10,000 trips by Chinese visitors in 2019. That means one in every five tourists to the Antarctica will be from China. But traditionally popular destinations like Thailand, Japan and South Korea are also among top choices for Chinese travelers.
The number of domestic trips and tourism revenue also increased steadily in 2018. About 5.54 billion trips were made domestically, going up 10.76 percent year-on-year.
Dai said that China’s tourism spending has become a main source to GDP growth, contributing 10 percent of the total economy.