March 23, 2009:After China´s foreign exchange earnings from tourism shrank by nearly 20 percent in January due to impacts from the financial crisis, the Data of Tourism Economy Operation for February issued by the National Tourism Administration last weekend show that foreign exchange earnings from inbound tourism continued on a downward trend, declining nearly 10 percent year-on-year.
The statistics show that in February 2009, China´s inbound tourism received 9.3981 million people, down 5.14 percent year-on-year. The number of foreigners was 1.5608 million, down 12.87 percent from the previous year. According to estimates, China received 2.834 billion USD of foreign exchange earnings from tourism nationwide in February, down 9.19 percent year-on-year.
At the same time, the number of Chinese citizens traveling outbound in February decreased by 2.5 percent from the previous year to 3.6783 million. Ranked by number of tourists, the top 10 countries and regions as the first stop for tourists leaving Chinese mainland were, in order, Hong Kong, Macao, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Singapore, Australia, the US and Malaysia.