China’s tourism expenditure grew 14.5% to reach RMB1.65 trillion (approx:US$265.7 billion) while investment in the national tourism industry grew by 28% y-o-y to a total of RMB301.8 billion (approx:US$48.6 billion) in the first half of 2015, according to the latest data released by China National Tourism Administration.
The data showed a y-o-y increase of 9.8% in outbound/inbound visitor numbers, totaling 127 million, of which 65.1 million were inbound trips and 61.9 million were outbound trips.
“The competitiveness of the inbound tourism market is reflected mainly by the number of overnight visits. While the key figures in China’s inbound tourism market have been growing in recent years, the number of overnight visitors has dropped. This is due to the continued strength of the reminbi amid the current global downturn and the lack of significant improvement in the quality of tourism products,“ said the dean at the Beijing Transport University’s Tourism Management Faculty, Hui Zhang.
“China’s tourism industry will continue to enjoy high growth even as the nation enters a new economic phase and so it will attract an enormous amount of capital investment. Chinese consumers are just beginning to shift consumption from material consumption to service consumption, and the growth in tourism investment and consumption is in line with the stage of the national economic development,” he said.
Mr. Zhang said as 60% of the current world tourism market is resort holidays, China’s inbound tourism market must adjust its core tourism strategy to focus on developing relevant resort tourism products and increase the market’s attractiveness.
Additionally, overseas promotion must be accelerated, along with introduction of targeted policies such as duty free shopping, convenient visa facilities and expanded subsidies and incentives offerings for industry-related business.(Translation by David)
