China's tourism industry is expected to service 2.06 billion customers and record RMB1.7 trillion (approx: US$247 billion) tourism receipts in the first half of this year, China Tourism Academy (CTA) projects in its 2015 Q1 and First-half Tourism Economic Survey and Trend Forecast.
The Chinese tourism market showed strong demand in Q1 - domestic tourism had stable growth, inbound tourism showed signs of recovery and outbound tourism maintained a high growth rate. Fragmentation in the tourism industry’s business structure is intensifying, and economy hotels and mid-range hotels have performed well while government policies and industry transition continue to lower the economic value of high-end hotels and restaurants. Large OTAs suffered poor earnings as a result of competition over market share whereas traditional large tour operators with good supplier resources in the upstream and customer bases in the downstream have achieved noticeable growth.
CTA director Bin Dai thinks the government's main task this year is “restructuring and stablizing growth” and it will reaffirm the importance of the service industry in the national readjustment of the economic structure . “[The government] will implement a number of effective policies to bolster the tourism industry, including investing in rail links to the western regions of China, promoting the “one belt, one route” infrastructure development initiative, coordinating the development of Beijing-Tianjing-Hebei, and bringing the Yangtze River economic belt into the national strategic plans,” he said.(Translation by David)
