ABSTRACT
The tourism industry is an important economic driver in many countries. Contributions of this industry are more salient in economies where tourism accounts for a substantial share of the gross domestic product (GDP). With increasing disposable income, more public holidays, and faster transportation, China’s domestic and outbound travel has grown unprecedentedly in recent years. In 2011, the number of inbound tourists reached 135 million with an international tourism (foreign exchange) revenue of 48.464 billion US dollars. The number of domestic tourists jumped to 2.641 billion with a revenue of RMB 1930.539 billion. The number of outbound tourists climbed to 70.25 million. The total revenue of tourism hit
RMB 2.25 trillion. China had 120 million outbound visitors in 2015, and they spent 104.5 billion US dollars, which is an increase of 12% and 16.7% compared with that of 2014. There were 133.8204 million inbound tourists, including foreigners and tourists from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. There were 56.8857 million overnight stays in China, which is an increase of 4.1% and 2.3%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2014. The total revenue of tourism hit RMB 4.00 trillion. Figure 7.1 shows domestic and inbound tourism statistics in 2011-2015.
