At the recent ATM Dubai Tourism Fair, it was announced that just last year some 70 million Chinese went abroad. Tourism professionals at the conference emphasized the significance of having tourism industry workers with Chinese language skills, as well as the food and kitchen quality and culture to lure Chinese tourists.

Lucy Chuang, managing director of Global Sino, said the Chinese outbound market was being helped by countries being given “approved destination” status by Chinese authorities. The coveted status allows Chinese nationals to travel in groups rather than as individuals.The UAE received approved destination status in 2009 and more than 300,000 Chinese visited there the following year, spending $334 million, according to MasterCard survey figures. Chuang said Chinese visitors to the UAE have since grown 50 percent annually.

In Israel, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of Chinese tourists. Last year alone saw a 29 percent increase over the previous year. While that number was just 17,157 out of over 3 million incoming tourists to Israel, it is growing. In the first quarter of this year, 6,000 Chinese tourists visited Israel, an increase of 14 percent over last year, Israel’s Tourism Ministry figures show.

The UNWTO has predicted that within the next five years China, with a population of some 1.3 billion, will be the number one country in terms of both sending and receiving tourists.With nearly 485 million Chinese with access to the Internet, they also suggested that effective use of social media and the Internet was essential to tap into the potential Chinese tourist market.

Dubai announced on Monday that it would also be issuing multiple entry visas for Chinese and other tourists who were arriving by cruise ship, thus reducing fees and encouraging more arrivals.

Sean Staunton, vice chairman of Dubai Duty Free, said that while Chinese travelers made up less than 4 percent of the total numbers of visitors, they accounted for 18 percent of the duty-free company’s annual turnover of $1.46 billion. This included 42 percent of watch sales, 32 percent of cosmetics and 20 percent of sunglasses.

The China Tourism Academy said they expected Chinese will spend as much as $80 billion abroad this year. This is amazing considering that outbound Chinese tourists were virtually non-existent just two decades ago. Thanks to their massive population and rising incomes, the number of Chinese traveling abroad is expected to continue its rise.

" The Chinese are also very curious of the Jewish brain and can find many examples of it in Israel and we know that their satisfaction rate is very high for tourists that come from China to Israel,” Shani said. " China is one of the sources of growth of tourism to Israel and we will see the results in the coming years.”