China has already become the world's fastest growing outbound travel market. It is also the largest outbound travel market in the Asia Pacific region.

According to the latest statistics, during the first three quarters of this year when the growth rate of global tourism was rapidly decreasing, Chinese citizens traveling abroad maintained a high growth rate of around 15%.

Francesco Frangialli, secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization, recently said in Guangzhou that tourism is not only an accelerator for the economy, but also a shock absorber during crises. And the constantly growing flow of tourists from emerging tourism markets, especially from the Asia Pacific region, makes great contributions to the economy. He also said that the number of outbound tourists traveling from China will continue to increase in 2008 and the trend will be maintained in 2009. The development of China's outbound tourism will promote tourism flow within the Asia Pacific region and change the pattern of the world's tourism.