China becomes the biggest source market for Vancouver tourism

According to the latest tourism figures, the Chinese outbound travellers have taken over the U.K. travellers as far as travelling to Vancouver is concerned. Tourism Vancouver revealed that the recent number of visitors from China has outstripped those from the U.K. for the first time in history.

Thus, China becomes the biggest international market for Vancouver with domestic tourism from the U.S. travellers leading the way to a more concrete tourism sector. Almost 209,499 Chinese travellers are expected to travel during the entire year of 2014 to Vancouver, an increase by 15.1% over last year.

The rise has prompted the city’s tourism organization to look for ways to promote and capitalize on the growing Asian interest. A revised version of their Chinese-language website has just been launched, and the organization continues to work with Vancouver-raised Chinese singer/songwriter Wanting Qu as part of their marketing plan in China.

Generally, tourism in the city is up, Tourism Vancouver notes, with overnight visits up 5.5 per cent over last year, and hotel occupancy for the same period up 8.5 per cent.

According to the tourism department of Vancouver, the growing tourism sector will see almost 69,000 new jobs in the city and the tourism value of the city reaching a whopping $3.6 billion.