Wednesday 23 July 2014

China’s Economy Supported by Tourism

About 80 million people are directly or indirectly employed by tourism sector. Inbound immediate tourists into China accounted for 56 million last year, which was a decrease of 3.5% of the previous year’s figure.

The foreign exchange revenue of the sector amounted to $51.7 billion with the outbound tourist accounting for 98.19 million, an increase of 18%.

Most of the international travellers visiting China are from Japan, United States of America (USA) Russia and South Korea.

The Deputy Director General, Marketing and International Cooperation Department of the China National Tourism Administration, Mr. Xiong Shanhua informed the Daily Graphic in Beijing that over the next five years, it is anticipated that above 500 million Chinese tourists will travel overseas.

Internal tourism in China is rife. This is obvious in the number of Chinese domestic tourists who flock to the two most important tourist’s sites in Beijing, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.

Everyday thousands of Chinese from other provinces line up at the gate of the Forbidden City holding the hands of the children to visit this ancient architectural masterpiece.

In 2013, the number of domestic tourists in the country amounted to 3.26 billion, which was an increase of 10.3%. Domestic tourism drew a total of $491.6 billion (2.95 trillion RMB), which was an increase of 14% of the previous year’s revenue in 2013.

Some African countries have become the destinations for Chinese tourists, Chinese are now everywhere and as part of the recently successful relation between China and Africa.

So far there are 19 African countries that have formally set up services to accommodate Chinese tourist groups.

According to statistics available indicate that in 2013, a total of 553,000 Africans travelled to China. On the other hand a total of 1,895,000 Chinese visited Africa last year which was a whopping 80.4% increase of the 2013 Chinese visitors to Africa.

Reasons that had increased the number of Chinese tourists to some African countries such as Kenya, Mauritius and Madagascar include the visa free protocol for Chinese passport holders and nationals from these countries who hold passport.

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