Chinese Outbound Tourism Likely to Rise in Coming Years

Over the next few years, popular international travel destinations have been warned to brace themselves for a massive rise in the figure of Chinese tourists. Tourism industry observers have informed the South China Morning Post that China’s growing wealth and cultural power will lead to major development, which the Chinese government is preparing for, however it is not clear whether the rest of the world is developing the capacity to deal with the expected numbers.

At last month’s World Travel and Tourism Council summit in Hainan participants were informed that Chinese outbound tourism will surpass 500m trips in the next five years and that China will overtake the US to become the world’s biggest tourism economy by 2023.

Vice-premier Wang Yang, declared at the summit, a six-point plan to boost Chinese tourism, including improvements to consular protection of Chinese citizens abroad and reciprocal negotiations to relax visa restrictions. A major upgrade of travel infrastructure and airport extension will also take place, which should help to improve flight punctuality from Beijing and other major airports.

Chairman of Hainan-based air transport company HNA Group, Chen Feng, forecasted that Chinese tourism will have a huge impact on the world and will “change the pattern of the global travel and tourism industry.”

General Manager of the Shanghai Spring International Travel Service Group, Xiao Qianhui, too agreed that despite a slowdown in the overall economy tourism is still growing.