News Archive

Online Hotel Booking For Your Next China Trip
2002/05/05

Tagalder Technology Corporation has incorporated an online hotel reservation system into its web site at http://www.index-china-travel.com.

As the travel industry becomes increasingly global in its nature so underdeveloped markets such as China are embracing the industry as a central pillar of growth. Tourism is a growth industry in China no matter how poor the level of infrastructure, accommodation, internal transportation or amenities. China holds foreigners fascinated, and also to a great extent, its own people. To look at the burgeoning Chinese tourism industry as simply one of importing foreigners is now too limited. Surely, the number of foreigners visiting China has grown annually for the last decade, yet it is the potential for domestic tourism that will propel the industry forward. Additionally, for a number of years it will inevitably be necessary to run the two sectors of the tourism industry side-by-side.

Across China people are realizing that tourism is a money-maker. Twenty-four of China’s 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have made tourism one of their pillar industries, and Hong Kong and Macau are already well-established destinations. The tourism industry directly employs a growing number of people annually in attractions, tourist sites, hotels and restaurants. But tourism naturally impinges on the fortunes of China’s airlines, car rental companies, restaurant trade and a hundred other sectors.

There is also the question of China’s outbound market. A 1999 survey by the China Consumers' Association ranked traveling third in all desired expense items among Chinese consumers. Growing annually and at present following the patterns of Chinese immigration over the years, Australia, UK, USA etc., but increasingly a section of Chinese society is traveling abroad for pleasure. Most of this is to Hong Kong and Macau but it is a growing sector. The domestic market is booming, locations such as Hainan Island, Beijing and Qingdao are evidence of this.

Ultimately the Chinese tourism market is about foreigners visiting. At the moment this is largely group-based but the prospects for independent travel grow annually. According to the World Tourism Organization 625 million tourists visited a foreign country, a 2.4% global growth, in 1998 with receipts, excluding air fares, growing 2% to US$ 445 billion.

China's tourism sector is expected to earn US$ 14 billion of foreign exchange in 2000 while domestic tourism revenue is projected to reach RMB 260 billion (US$ 31 billion). By then, tourism revenue will account for 5% of China's GDP. China's tourism revenue accounted for 4% of GDP in 1998. Tourism-related foreign exchange is projected to reach US$ 40 billion by 2010, while domestic tourism revenue will reach RMB 1.3 trillion (US$ 156 billion). At present China attracts 24 million foreign tourists annually, while the number of Chinese travelers going abroad has grown to 8.4 million.

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