According to the announcement of China National Tourism Administration 46 million Chinese traveled overseas from mainland China during 2008 which, up 12% from 2007. This confirms China remains the world's fastest growing outbound travel market despite global economic downturn. Indeed, during Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year holiday over a million of Chinese went abroad. The total number for Chinese traveling overseas in 2009 is expected to exceed 50 million. Francesco Frangialli, The Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization said 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.

It is also interesting to note that Chinese travelers continue to be the top spenders with average spent of US$6000 per trip per person in the USA according to NTA. According to a survey conducted by Nielson Co. and Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Chinese visitors spent on average 1,359 Euro per person on shopping for luxury goods alone in Europe.

How to get a piece of the biggest emerging tourism market?

With shrinking traditional tourism source markets, destinations and tourism companies look for new ways to attract visitors from the emerging markets, especially from China.

At the COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute Workshop at the ITB fair in Berlin, Dr. Taleb Rifai, Acting Secretary General of the UNWTO, gave a welcoming address. He emphasized the importance of China as a tourism source market in this troubled times and reported on the support, the Chinese government is giving to the development of the outbound tourism market as one instrument to re-start the global economy.

Dr. Taleb Rifai: “Chinese government representatives told me: We will work hard to double the number of Chinese Outbound Travelers in the next four to five years!”

Given the current level of 46 million cross-border travels from Mainland China in 2008, that would translate to about 90 million travels in 2013.