The Major Inbound Markets

Now let’s talk about the China’s inbound tourism major markets.

Here is a figure about the overall inbound tourism to China from 1980 to 2017. It is obvious that the foreign visitors excluding the compatriot markets only take about 20% of the overall market share of visitors to China. This figure shows the number of foreign tourist arrivals to China from different continents. Asia is still the number one tourist generating continent, followed by Europe and America. The Pacific and Africa remain insignificant market shares compared to other markets. The situation indicates that geographic proximity and economic status were important factors in influencing the international travel markets.

In 2018, Asian tourists contributed 68% and still having the largest share of tourism arrivals with a total of approximately 17 million visitors from Asia. The second largest share was from Europe, which contributed a total of 4.9 million visitors, accounting for about 18% of the total. Next was the north American market, with a total of 3.1 million visitors which occupied about 11% of the whole market share.

The fourth largest market was Oceania, with about 0.7 million tourists to China, account for about 2%. Finally there were 0.5 million visitors from Africa, comprising a market share of 2%. China’s international tourism markets are usually

divided into the following parts: first, the compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao, ethnic Chinese residents of Hong Kong and Macao; two, compatriots from Taiwan, ethnic Chinese residents of Taiwan; and three, overseas Chinese for those Chinese who reside in other countries except in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan; and the fourth one is foreigners, meaning those foreign visitors with other countries passport. Compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are the major force of inbound tourism market in China. The importance of overseas Chinese and compatriots are two-fold to facilitate travel to the home country for expatriates to visit family and friends, and also through remittances and possible investment to improve the paucity of foreign exchange reserves during the early stage of tourism development.

This figure shows the top 15 foreign inbound tourist generating countries in 2016. Korea, Japan, USA, Russia and Mongolia have been ranked as the top 5 for over twenty years.

And they are regarded as the most important international tourism markets for China. But the ranking for the top five markets can be different from year to year. So here is a map of the People’s Republic of China. China is a country with an area of about 9.6 million square kilometers, a history of more than 5000 years, and a country with 56 nationalities. From economic and geographical point of view, China’s development has been varied from region to region, started from eastern and coastal region to middle and western part of China. Over the years, despite some political skepticism towards both the concept and understanding of tourism, it is now recognized as being one of the pillar industries in the economy.

And this part outlines the historical stages of this evolution and considers how the development has moved from the initial stage of tourism serving politics to the current position, where tourism serves the economy. For the past almost 40 years, China’s inbound tourism has really grown from a very small volume to what is today as the leading country in inbound tourism.

Started with a small scale of receiving tourists as a way for foreign relationship building, it has grown to a scale where the body economy is partial depending on it, as reflected by tourism contribution to the country’s GDP. This part has seek to explain transition from one phase to the other. With such a rich natural and man-made resources, economic prosperity and stable political environment, tourism industry has developed rapidly. Now let’s look at the development prospects of China’s inbound tourism. China’s inbound tourism is very much influenced by world’s economic and safety situations. Another aspects of this is that active reform in political and economic system is also needed to ensure the further growth of industry.

Improvement of service infrastructure and standard in China tourism industry, and also attention to tourism products promotions, China should take much more active actions to market itself. Local government, media, including traditional and new social media, should work together to develop specific and general markets.

After 40 years of development, learning from different international practices and applying them into the unique Chinese settings, politically, socially and culturally, there is an emergence of Chinese brands in the tourism industry. Moving forward there is a great potential to create series service brands from China, given the fast development of Internet in China.

Creating awareness of sustainable development of tourism products is also important with the fast development of tourism industry in China.

With the merge of China’s National Tourism Administration and Ministry of Culture, clarification and distribution of management functions among central and local tourism bureau is essential to the future success of the tourism industry in China.