China Business

Sep 20, 2006

Chinese tourists number one in Asia

GUIYANG - China has maintained a strong momentum of growth in outbound traveling, becoming the biggest source of tourists in Asia, said Gu Zhaoxi, deputy director of the National Tourism Administration.

China registered 31.03 million overseas trips in 2005, of which more than 80% were self-pay trips.

China approved 124 countries and regions as destinations for

travel by Chinese citizens by the end of July 2006, and has organized visits by tourist groups to 84 of them.

At the same time, China has received an increasing number of foreign tourists, rocketing from 1.81 million in 1978 to 120 million in 2005, increasing 66 times. The foreign exchange income from tourism has increased from US$263 million to US$29.3 billion, up 111 times, averaging 19% each year.

China ranks fourth in the number of overnight overseas tourists and sixth in foreign exchange income from tourism.

At the same time, the domestic tourism market expanded rapidly to reach 1.212 billion tourists in 2005.

(Asia Pulse/XIC)

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