Inbound tourism
China’s tourism started with inbound tourism, and for a long period of time until mid-1980s, it meant the entire tourist industry in the country, with neither domestic tourism nor outbound travels of the residents then. However, the purpose of developing inbound tourism was very clear and definite----to earn foreign exchange badly needed by the country to support its modernizations. Indeed, the revenue from inbound tourism has been increased more rapidly as expected originally by the government leaders. In the past 27 years from 1978 to 2004, China’s inbound tourism maintained a two-digital growth annually with a few exceptions, higher than the world average. From a nobody in the realm of world tourism before the reform, China now stands first among all Asian countries, and fourth among the top ten international tourism destinations in the world in terms of international arrivals.
It should be noted that some of the figures in the above tables have drawbacks:
a. For the historical reasons, that arrivals made by Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are still considered as “overseas” arrivals, in fact, these three markets make up some 85% or more of all markets.
b. International arrivals include both those of day-trippers and overnight stayers, hence the figures are not comparable with the figures released by World Tourism Organization (WTO), much bigger.
c. China’s international tourism market structure has changed obviously, except for Japan remains the No.1 market, the dominating position of long-haul markets like USA, UK and Australia has been replaced by neighboring countries in the region like ROK, Russia and other Southeast Asian countries.
Outbound tourism
Outbound travel was long dominated by government officers or businessmen before 1980s, and considered as a status of power or position. Leisure travels or holiday outside the country paid by the residents themselves have been made possible only since early 1990s, and the formulation and implementation of Provisional measures for the Management of self-paid Outbound Travels of the Chinese Residents (1997) and later Management Measures for Outbound Travels of the Chinese Residents (2002) have regulated the outbound tourism in a legal way (those two regulations are attached in Annex 2). In fact, outbound tourism in China includes visits to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, border tourism, and visits to foreign countries.
Owing to the gradual relaxation of various controls from both China and destination countries, outbound tourism of the Chinese residents has been booming since late 1990s with the introduction of ADS-agreement (approved destination status) in 1995. It took some 10 years in China that the number of outbound departure reached the first 10 mn in 2000, and only 3 years to reach the second 10 mn in 2003. What is more important, the spending of the Chinese residents outside the country has drawn a great attention of international tourist destinations. There is no such statistics of the overseas spending of the Chinese tourists released by the Chinese government, however, China has been among the top ten spenders in international tourism in the world according to World Tourism Organization (WTO), and it has been taken as one of the most important target market with great potential by many Asian and Oceanian countries. Up to the end of 2004, about 100 countries in the world have reached ADS-agreement with China, and over 60 countries have actually operated the business.
The following remarks on the figures in the above tables should be noted in order to make a proper analysis and judgment:
a. Outbound departures vs outbound tourists
Outbound departure and outbound tourist are different concepts. The former stands for departures of the Chinese passport holders recorded by the frontier check-points regardless of their purpose and direction of travel. In another word, these figures include all departures made by tour groups, individual visitors, day-trippers to HK, Macau or other bordering countries, and even those Chinese passport holders living overseas, regardless of business or leisure travels. The latter stands only those outbound travelers for leisure or holiday. In fact, Chinese policy of outbound tourism only concerns the outbound travels for leisure, rather than business travels of various kinds. Up to now, the ADS agreements signed between China and other destination countries only cover tour groups, have nothing to do with business travels.
b. Departures for business vs departure for private affairs
Departure for business and departure for private affairs are two different categories of outbound visitors. However, it does not care much about the real purpose of travel. While departures for business mean departures made by service passport holders, and those for private affairs mean departures made by private passport holders. In fact, many people may make outbound business travels with their private passports, and at the same time, some people may have overseas leisure travels with their service passports, especially to the non-ADS destinations.
c. Overseas spending of Chinese residents vs the outbound tourism expenditure by the Chinese tourists
Overseas spending of the Chinese residents is not the same as the outbound tourism expenditure by the Chinese tourists. At least, more than half of expenditures are made by business travelers. For China as a generating country, its tourism policy only concerns the self-paid leisure travels basically, business travels either paid by government or corporation are out of concern of the government tourism policy. For destination countries, all incoming visitors to the country are classified as tourists except for some special cases, and all spending of those visitors may constitute the destinations’ tourism revenue. As a result, international tourism generating countries and tourism destinations may have different policies relating to the same group of customers.
Summary
In general, the Chinese government policy towards tourism remains unchanged with priority on inbound tourism. For the further development, policies of increasing the products and services quality should be made soon to address the problems of low quality and protection of consumers’ rights. And the policy on outbound tourism becomes more positive and encouraging. With more ADS destinations designated, private leisure travels are increasing. Package tour is still the major mode of leisure travel though, the new form of independent travels has emerged and expanded quietly from the breakthrough from Hong Kong and Macau.
In China, tourism, both international and domestic, and both inbound and outbound, has been developing very fast, and indicates a prospective vision. While inbound tourism grows rapidly and becomes sizable, the outbound tourism in the country is still at its initiative stage, and immature is the distinctive feature of the markets.
Pro. Zhang Guangrui, Dr. Song Rui
Tourism Research Center, CASS