Chinese tourism set to become world's second most influential

China's massive - and rapidly growing - tourism market is expected to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest by 2013 and then account for 14 percent of the global market by 2020.

A report released this week by the Boston Consulting Group (http://www.bcg.com) estimates the Chinese domestic and international tourism market will grow by 14 percent annually and will be worth a staggering 5.5 trillion yuan (592 billion euro) by 2020.

Currently China accounts for around six percent of global tourism and, as visa access eases and the Chinese economy continues its expected growth, that figure is expected to grow considerably over the next decade.Japan is expected to by 2010 account for six percent of the world tourism market while the United States will still account for an estimated 25 percent.

BCG estimates that China will contribute around 25 percent of all travelers heading to Japan and South Korea by 2020, while the nation will be responsible for more than half of "new arrivals" to Europe by then.

As it stands now, the majority of Chinese's estimated 55 million annual outbound tourists head to relatively close-by destinations such as Hong Kong (22.7 million Chinese visitors per year) but the growing trend sees Chinese looking further afield, according to BCG.

The report noted that Chinese travelers were more likely than Americans to take trips of six-plus days (45 percent compared to 23 percent) and more likely to travels in groups of five people or more (26 percent compared to 13 percent).

BCG quizzed more than 4,000 Chinese travelers - from the inbound, outbound, leisure and business market - across 15 cities in compiling their report, "Taking Off: Travel and Tourism in China and Beyond."

"There will be an average of 25 million first-time Chinese travelers every year, or 70,000 every day," for the next 10 years," BCG's Hong Kong-based partner Vincent Lui told the state-run China Daily newspaper.

Source = independent.co.uk