The following is an overview of the China Outbound Travel Market:

• On June 17, 2008 China opened up Special cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, plus provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Hebei, and Guangdong where citizens were allowed to travel to USA as tourists.
• On October 1, 2009, Special city of Chongqing and Provinces of Shanxi, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Shandong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Yunnan and Shaanxi were opened.
• On Jan.30, 2011 Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Fujian were opened.
• There are still 10 provinces remain to be open. It is believed China will move ahead with these very soon.
• There were 820,000 Chinese tourists who visited USA in 2009.
• There were 730,000 Chinese tourists who visited to USA from Jan. to August 2010 a 33% increase compate to the same period of 2009.
• Forecast is that there will be over 2 million Chinese tourists to visit USA by 2015. Annual increase rate is around 20%.
• Total number of Chinese tourists visited all 140 destinations were 57.39 million in 2010. a 20.4% increase compared to 2009.

In February 2009, the number of inbound tourists into China was 9.3981 million person-times, down 5.14% on the year-on-year basis. Of which, the number of foreigners was 1.5608 million person-times, down 12.87% on the year-on-year basis. According to measurement and calculation, China’s realized tourism (foreign exchange) revenue totaled 2.834 billion U.S. dollars, down 9.19% on the year-on-year basis this month.

Upon accumulation from January to February 2009, the number of inbound tourists into China was 19.73 million person-times, down 4.76% on the year-on-year basis. Of which, the number of foreigners was 3.0087 million person-times, down 22.75%. According to measurement and calculation, China’s realized tourism (foreign exchange) revenue totaled 5.604 billion U.S. dollars, down 14.32% on the year-on-year basis from January to February 2009.

In February 2009, the number of outbound Chinese tourists with citizenship was 3.6783 million person-times, down 2.50% on the year-on-year basis. According to the number of tourists going to the first outbound destination, Top 10 countries and regions ranked in sequence are: Hong Kong, Macao, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Singapore, Australia, the United States and Malaysia. Upon accumulation from January to February 2009, the number of outbound Chinese tourists with citizenship was 7.9909 million person-times, up 5.53% over the same period in the previous year.

Source:  http://en.cnta.gov.cn - February 2009

CNTA - Domestic Tourism 2007

Source:  CNTA Website