China Grows on as a Tourist-Sending Market

Some 16 million Chinese travelers trekked overseas in the first seven months of 2004, up a blistering 63.7 percent from the same period of time last year, according to statistics disclosed this week.

“In 2003, China became the Asian nation with the largest number of tourists traveling overseas, going Japan one better,” He Guangwei, chief of the National Tourism Management Office, was quoted as saying in China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.

“China is about to turn out the world’s most powerful country in terms of tourists,” Mr. He added.

In the mid 1980s, traveling abroad was just wishful thinking for most Chinese citizens at a time when there weren’t even travel agencies in the country.

With the exception of the Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of Hong Kong and Macao, mainland Chinese people were only allowed to sally forth to Thailand.

As China’s income per capita soared to $1,090 and hard-currency funds jacked up to $90 billion in 2003, the Asian country has had the fastest-growing travel industry on the face of the earth.

Most nations yearn for getting the much-coveted Authorized Destination Status (ADS) with a view to draw as many as 100 million Chinese citizens that are supposed to travel overseas by the year 2020. Some countries are even discussing this issue at a diplomatic level.

Nowadays, seventy three countries and world regions have received ADS permits, while the World Tourism Organization indicates that China ranks among the globe’s top-ten tourist-sending markets.

Between 1994 and 2003, some 100 million Chinese sunbathers tripped abroad, up 13.9 percent from the previous ten-year period.

On the other hand, China received 61 million foreign tourists in the first seven months of the ongoing year who spent $12.7 billion, an increase of 24 and 45 percent respectively compared to the same span of time last year.