Marking the opening of the China International Travel Mart 2014, China National Tourism Administration Chairman Jin Li said that tourism had become the biggest industry in the world and a driving engine for global economy. The travel fair, said to be the largest in the Asia-Pacific region, was held on the November 14-16 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.
Mr Li said the global travel industry contributed 10% of the global GDP in 2013 and accounted for 3.5% of the growth in worldwide economy, directly providing 100 million jobs. China has the world’s largest domestic and outbound tourism markets.
China’s domestic, outbound and inbound tourism sectors registered 3.6 billion, 114 million and 128 million trips respectively in 2014. Chinese made an average of 2.8 outbound trips per capita. By 2020, the number of trips made by Chinese is expected to increase to 4.5 per person a year, and the tourism market will be handling 6 billion trips generating RMB5 trillion annually.
The latest forecast also put domestic and overseas shopping at RMB1 trillion and US$100 billion respectively by 2020.
China Tourism Institute Director Bin Dai believed that China would step up efforts to attract foreign investment in capital, technology and human resources in the domestic tourism market and would introduce new forms of travel services, hotel management, theme parks, cultural attractions and car/accommodation rental business models.(Translation by David)
