Despite the slowdown in China’s economy, business travel is maintaining high double -digit growth, according to the Global Business Travel Association.
China’s domestic tourism market is estimated to overtake the USA in 2017, according to a recent Oxford University study. China’s outbound tourism has already caught up with the US around 2014, and China’s business travel market registering double-digit growth in expenditure is expected to surge pass the US to become the largest travel market in the world sometime in 2016 to 2017.
The Oxford report also forecasts accelerated growth in the global tourism industry in the next ten years spurred by China and other emerging markets, as China is set to become a major engine to drive the global tourism industry in the next decade.
With the range of international exchange programs in universities flourishing, there is an increasing number of Chinese university students taking year-long or half-year overseas exchanges in the USA, Germany, France, UK and Australia, or taking self-funding studies abroad either on the secondary or tertiary levels.
China has become the largest Asian market for Germany’s tourism industry, and German businesses embraced Chinese tourists spending in the destination during the Spring Festival. More countries are welcoming the growing number of Chinese families choosing to vacation abroad who not only contribute to the national tourism industry but also to the retail industry.
(Translation by David)
