National Day Holiday (Oct 1st - 7th) of China is coming and more Chinese visitors prefer to go travelling abroad.
Even as some travel destinations struggle to attract tourists, flocks of Chinese are expected to go overseas during the National Day holiday, according to the country's top tourism think tank.
The China Tourism Academy, a research institute, forecasts that 2.2 million Chinese tourists will travel overseas during the weeklong holiday that starts on Oct 1.
The number of outbound tourists is expected to increase by a double-digit percentage above what it was in the same period this past year, the academy said. And travelers during the holiday are expected to spend $950 each on average, or $2.1 billion in total.
Wang Di, manager of the Beijing Tourism Group's Middle East and Africa tourism department, said tourists will usually travel to alternative destinations rather than Middle East. In Africa, that tendency has been a boon to countries such as
Kenya and
South Africa.
Last year, the number of Chinese travelers going overseas hit 57.39 million, which was up by 20.4 percent above the number for the previous year, according to the China National Tourism Administration.
According to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, a non-profit travel trade association in the area, travelers in China spend $55 billion abroad every year. Fifteen years ago, the figure was $8 billion.
In 2010, China came in fourth in a ranking of countries whose citizens spend the most in their overseas travels.
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