TIA Conducts Study on Growing Chinese Travel Market

The Travel Industry Association has teamed with several other organizations to conduct a comprehensive study of the travel market in China, which is expected to soon become one of the largest travel markets in the world and one that the U.S. hopes to gain a larger share of.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Travel and Tourism Center at the University of South Carolina and the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries/U.S. Dept. of Commerce are also participating in the study, which involves surveying some 10,000 Chinese citizens.

The study will delve into the preferences of Chinese travelers, as well as their attitudes, spending patterns and behaviors, and the major factors in their destination and recreational choices for leisure travel, the TIA said. The first part of the two-part report is expected to be released later this year.

Initial data has indicated that “8 percent of urban Chinese adults have taken a trip outside mainland China in the past three years,” the TIA said. The U.S. was one of the most common visited countries for Chinese long-haul travelers, who spent approximately $6,000 per trip –the highest of any international travelers to the U.S.

The study comes on the heels of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and China, signed in December, that permits U.S. companies to market travel in China and allows group leisure travel to the U.S.