China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: the world’s largest domestic tourism market

In 2007, China’s total tourism revenue reached 1,09 trillion yuan (over 148 million US dollars), exceeding one trillion yuan for the first time. China now has one of the largest tourism markets in the world, said Wang Zhifa, deputy director of Chinese National Tourism Administration.

By the end of 2007, China had 18,000 travel agencies, 13,000 star-rated hotels and over 20,000 Scenic Spots. The number of undergraduate students majoring in tourism reached 730,000; the direct tourism practitioner were more than 10 million and the indirect tourism practitioner were over 49 million.

A large-scaled modern tourism industry with solid-foundation has been preliminarily established.

Due to rising income and improved salaried vacation system, China’s total tourist arrivals reached 1,783 million in 2007.

Meanwhile, the tourist flow between January and July in 2008 increased by 2% than the same period of last year.

China has world’s largest domestic tourism market. The inbound tourism and the outbound tourism both get a well development. The number of inbound tourists rose from 1,809,000 person-time in 1978 to 132 million person-time in 2007 with the foreign exchange earnings from tourism increasing by 159 times.