This year over 100 million Chinese will travel overseas. China will remain as the top country in the world for overseas spending. Meanwhile the trade deficit from China’s outbound travel will be over US$100 billion.
Data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization shows that ten years ago China’s outbound travel spending was only 1% of the total global travel spending. This figure will rise to 20% by 2023.
This September the World Tourism Cities Federation published the “Market Research Report on Chinese Outbound Tourist (City) Consumption”. This report states that currently Chinese outbound tourists spend an average of 20 thousand RMB on each trip with 57.8% spent on shopping.
Even though there is a trade and foreign currency deficit in outbound travel, the Chinese government would not change their policies that encourage outbound travel nor can they take steps to limit outbound travel. Qiwei Shao, the head of the China National Tourism Administration, said, “Outbound travel not only helps to balance the country’s international trade surplus by reducing foreign currency savings, but is also an important part of China’s travel industry”.
In 2009 China’s Travel Sector had a trade deficit of over US$2 billion, the first since 1982. Only five years later in 2014 this deficit has increased fifty times to US$ 100 billion. China now already has the largest travel trade deficit in the world.
Many of the regions that accept the Reminbi for settlement are popular destinations for Chinese tourists such as: Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, SEA, and Oceania. Normally the globalization of a currency requires complete liberalization for currency exchange but the RMB is entering the global market even while it is still has not been completely liberalized. As a result overseas spending by Chinese tourists is also playing a crucial role in the globalization of the RMB.(Translation by David)
