Chinese Jetsetters

A report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) predicts that China will become the world's second largest tourism market by 2013, but despite its strong growth, the travel industry is still in its infancy. Incentives to mature fast abound. By 2020 the number of China's outbound tourists will be close to that of the U.S., and the value of domestic tourism will reach RMB 3.9 trillion (US $590 billion). Travel within China, which accounts for the lion's share of Chinese tourism by both volume and spending, is projected to grow by 16 percent per year and to be worth RMB 3.9 trillion by 2020. The BCG study indicates that by 2020 one fourth of international travelers arriving in Japan and South Korea will come from China, and Chinese visitors to Europe will quadruple, making China the largest source of growth for that continent's travel market. In North America, the number of Chinese tourists will rank third, after the U.K and Japan.