China witnessed a remarkable surge in tourism activities, with domestic travels reaching 474 million, a 34.3% increase from the previous year and a 19.0% rise compared to the same period in 2019, according to data from China Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

This period saw domestic tourists spending a staggering 632.687 billion yuan, marking a 47.3% year-on-year increase and a 7.7% growth from 2019 levels.

On average, each traveler expended approximately 1,335 yuan, underscoring the sector’s robust recovery and the growing enthusiasm for travel among the Chinese populace.

In addition to domestic travels, cross-border tourism also saw a significant uptick, with about 6.83 million inbound and outbound trips. The distribution between outbound and inbound travels was fairly balanced, with approximately 3.6 million outbound trips and 3.23 million inbound trips, highlighting China’s appeal as both a premier global travel destination and a significant source market for international tourism.

The cultural and entertainment sectors benefited from this travel boom, with 16,300 commercial performances happening nationwide, witnessing a 52.10% increase over the previous year.

These performances generated 778 million yuan in ticket sales, up 80.09% from the previous year, and attracted 6.5765 million attendees, marking a 77.71% increase year-over-year.

The 2024 Spring Festival film market set new records, with total box office revenues reaching 8.023 billion yuan. This achievement was supported by an unprecedented number of cinema-goers, 163 million, and screenings, 3.937 million, highlighting the entertainment industry’s significant role in China’s tourism and cultural landscape.

Reflecting on the entire year of 2023, domestic travel figures reached 48.91 billion trips, a 93.3% increase from the previous year.

Urban and rural residents alike contributed to this surge, with urban residents undertaking 37.58 billion trips (a 94.9% increase) and rural residents accounting for 11.33 billion trips (an 88.5% increase).

The total expenditure by domestic tourists soared to 4.91 trillion yuan, up 140.3%, indicating a robust demand for travel and leisure activities.

These statistics underscore the resilience and potential of China’s tourism industry, signalling the start of a new growth era in the post-pandemic world.

As travel restrictions ease and consumer confidence returns, the sector is poised for further expansion, promising significant economic benefits.

The gap between residents of second-tier and third-tier cities and those from first-tier cities is rapidly narrowing in terms of per capita outbound destinations, travel expenditure, and travel budget according to a report from Nielsen.

On per capita outbound destinations, there was virtually no difference between those in second-tier and first-tier cities.

In terms of per capita annual overseas travel expenditure, the difference between residents in third-tier and first-tier cities significantly dropped from USD 1,7241 in 2018 to USD606 in 2019.

On travel budget for the year 2020, the gap between residents in third-tier and first-tier cities shrank sharply from USD 1,859 in 2018 to USD 614 in 2019. The Nielsen survey also found that Chinese tourists from lower-tier cities had more definite future travel plans.

In 2019, the number of transactions Chinese tourists made via mobile payment continued to increase. On average, Chinese tourists paid via mobile payment 3.4 times out of every 10 payments in 2019, up from 3.2 times in 2018.

Chinese tourists’ focus on shopping had transformed because of more abundant forms of promotional and marketing activities provided by Chinese mobile payment.

European Merchants Accelerated Adoption of Chinese Mobile Payment

92% of Chinese tourists traveling to Europe said they are more likely to pay with mobile phones if more local merchants supported Chinese mobile payment solutions, and 89% said that they are more likely to shop and spend locally.

In the U.K. and France, the percentage of Chinese tourists who used mobile payments increased to 65% in 2019, with per capita mobile spending increased by about 10%.

Mobile Payments Facilitates Digital Operations of Merchants

88% of merchants in the Nielsen survey who have used additional services on Chinese payment platforms recognized that these solutions helped market their stores, and 63% believed that mobile payment and related services improved the efficiency of store management.

Nearly 70% of the U.K. merchants surveyed have begun utilizing services beyond payment on Alipay. 82% witnessed an increase in sales and customer traffic after connecting to the Chinese mobile payment platforms.

The integration of online and offline retail with a more digitized operation has further enhanced the consumer experience for Chinese tourists when traveling overseas and has resulted in a new experience for overseas merchants in their digital transformation.

More Overseas Merchants May Deepen Their Use of Chinese Mobile Payment Platforms

South Korea and Singapore, when it comes to their future store operation and management, 66% of surveyed merchants hope to carry out more digital store operations through Chinese mobile payment, and 66% of them hope to further store promotional and marketing activities leveraging Chinese mobile payment platforms.

Integrated in Alibaba’s ecosystem, Alipay helped merchants realize traffic monetization from both online and offline channels, which is appealing to regions that have embraced Chinese mobile payments.

78% of the U.K. merchants surveyed said that they are likely to recommend Alipay to their industry peers in the future.

Top Travel Destinations

In 2019, destinations within a four-hour flight are still the most popular choices for Chinese tourists. Countries including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore are still their favorites. And, the U.S., Australia, the U.K., and Canada are also among the top 10 countries.

Turkey rose to the top 20 destinations for Chinese tourists for the first time in 2019.

Top 5 countries where Chinese tourists love to use mobile payments are Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and Thailand.

And, the top 10 destinations in 2020 according to Nielsen’s survey are Japan, South Korea, the U.S., Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, France, Thailand, Maldives, and Italy.

The report also shows that lower-tier cities provide more driving force in the Chinese outbound tourism market, niche destinations gradually gained popularity among all age groups, young tourists spent more on a single trip.

CIW subscribers (annual membership) can download the report here.

The year 2019 registered 6.01 billion domestic tourists person-trips in China, up by 8.4 percent over that of the previous year.

The revenue from domestic tourism totaled 5,725.1 billion yuan, up by 11.7 percent. The number of inbound visitors to China totaled 145.31 million, an increase of 2.9 percent. Of this total, 31.88 million were foreigners, up by 4.4 percent; and 113.42 million were Chinese compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, up by 2.5 percent.

Of all the inbound tourists, overnight visitors counted 65.73 million, an increase of 4.5 percent. Earnings from international tourism topped 131.3 billion US dollars, up by 3.3 percent.

The number of China’s outbound visitors totaled 169.21 million, up by 4.5%. Of this total, 162.11 million were on private visits, an increase of 4.6 percent; and 102.37 million visited Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, up by 3.2 percent. Read more on outbound tourism in 2019 here.

China Tourism Forecast in 2020

In the first quarter and the whole year of 2020, the number of domestic tourists will decrease by 56% and 15.5% respectively according to China Tourism Academy. 2020 will see a decrease of 932 million person-trips.

The domestic tourism revenue will decrease by 69% and 20.6% for Q1 and whole year of 2020 respectively, with a year-on-year decrease of 1.18 trillion yuan.

In the first quarter and the whole year, the number of inbound tourists will decrease by 51.7% and 34.7% respectively; and, the revenue of international tourism will drop by 59.8% and 40.6%.

The number of outbound tourists in the first quarter and the whole year of 2020 will decrease by 42.6% and 17.6%, respectively; and the number of outbound tourists will decrease by 27.63 million.

Characteristics of China outbound travelers in 4 segments

Close to one third (29%) of China outbound travelers are post-80s; They spent an average of 5,566 yuan on travel booking. Online travel websites and mobile apps are the top sources of China’s outbound tourists to obtain travel information in 2019. China’s outbound travelers spent most on shopping (37%) and transport & accommodation (32%).

The number of international flight routes in China grew to 849 in 2018 from 381 in 2012. China saw passenger traffic on international routes growing at about 15% in 2018 to 63.7 million person-trips.

Related Dossier: China Outbound Tourism

China’s outbound tourism OTA market is expected to reach 91.5 billion yuan in 2019 and 110 billion yuan in 2020.

Close to one third (29%) of China outbound travelers are post-80s, those born during 1980 and 1989. They spent an average of 5,566 yuan on travel booking in 2018.

More outbound Chinese travelers went on free-and-easy (self-guided) tours, growing from 37.2% in 2015 to 42.5% in 2018.

Southeast Asia is the top outbound destinations (54.8%) among Chinese travelers in 2019, followed by East Asia (46.9%), and Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan region (42.6%). Europe is also a population destination (27.9%).

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Characteristics of China outbound travelers in 4 segments

As Alipay accelerates its footprint across the globe, Chinese consumers’ overseas spending through the app continues to increase during China’s National Day Golden Week period, compared to the same period last year. Global in-store transaction volume this year grew by 10% YoY. The average total spends per user increased by 15% to about RMB 2,500 (about US$350).

China’s domestic attractions saw about 782 million visits during the National Day holiday, up 7.8% year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Tourists’ spending during the holiday reached nearly 650 billion yuan ($91 billion), an increase of 8.47% from the previous year.

Top 10 Golden Week destinations by Alipay transaction volume

Japan topped the list of top 10 Golden Week destinations by Alipay transaction volume for the first time, with Thailand ranked #2. Cambodia and the Philippines joined the top 10 list for the first time, with large numbers of merchants now accepting Alipay in these two destinations.

Emerging destinations in Chinese Golden Week 2019

Emerging destinations saw some of the fastest growth in Alipay use compared to the previous year, the Philippines experienced 26 times the volume of transactions this year than in 2018, thanks to the mass rollout of Alipay to local merchants over the last 12 months.

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During Chinese National Day holiday, a.k.a. Golden Week in China, cultural and tourism consumption is more popular this year than in previous years. According to the data from Alibaba’s OTA Fliggy, the number of people who have booked domestic tours on National Day Fliggy increased by 42% year-on-year, and the growth rate exceeded the outbound travel.

China’s National Day holidays are public holidays and last one week from 1 Oct to 7 Oct.

With the National Day holiday approaching, the searching volume of OTA Tuniu’s National Day holiday travel products is soaring while the sales of the outbound and domestic tour products are rocketing, accounting for 57% and 31% of total bookings respectively.

Some travelers have made reservations for outbound tours four months in advance.

Compared with the period before the holiday, the prices of tour products during the National Day holiday have all increased.

Among them, domestic tour products rise by an average of about 35% and quick getaway tour products rose by 10%-15%; the prices of outbound short-distance tour products generally increase by about 30% while the price increase for outbound long-distance tour products is slightly lower than that of short-term tour products, at about 10%.

Different from previous years, the trend of off-peak travel around the National Day holidays this year is not obvious. One reason is that the previous holiday “Mid-Autumn Festival” is 12 days apart, making it difficult to utilize by the travelers were used to taking advantage.

In 2018, there were only 6 working days between the 2018 Mid-Autumn Festival holiday and the National Day holiday, which can adjust and piece together the longest holiday in the history of “Mid-Autumn Festival + National Day” – 16 days. However, the 12 working days between the two festivals this year made people give up adjustment or switch to adjust the latter part of the holiday.

On the other hand, with the increasing awareness of traveling in off-peak periods, the line between high seasons and off-seasons is blurring. It is expected that the number of people traveling during the National Day holiday will increase sharply from about September 30 and reach the peak on October 1.

Tuniu’s data for tourism products reservation during the National Day holiday shows that long-distance and in-depth tour products are the most popular ones. Over 40% of users will travel for 5-6 days while nearly 20% have selected itineraries of 7 days or longer.

Diverse travel modes such as group tour, free & easy tours, partially guided tour, customized tour, self-driving tour, local fun tour, car rental, and others will be favored by a large number of tourists during the National Day holiday.

Login or subscribe to read the full National Day Tourism insights including top travelers origins, top destinations, popular outbound activities and destinations, and trending tourism themes in China. 

Alipay shared a study on the spending habits of Chinese visitors on the payment app over the Labour Day holiday (1–3 May) this year. The number of Chinese visitors in Singapore over the Labour Day holiday period almost doubled from last year.

In addition, the average Chinese traveler spent SGD 325 (RMB 1,611) in Singapore during the Labour Day holiday – higher than in any of the other SEA countries, and a 13% increase from the same period last year according to Alipay.

Key Singapore-specific findings reveal:

• Grocery and fresh food supermarkets, followed by department stores and fashion brands saw the highest growth among Chinese visitors during this period
• The most popular merchants in Singapore were taxis (in-street and via taxi-hailing apps), airport merchants and resort merchants

General findings from the study reveal:

• Average overseas spending per user on Alipay increased by nearly 11% to RMB 1,790 (SGD 361)
• Spending was highest in Europe, the Middle East and North Asia
• In terms of the number of transactions, Thailand was the second-most popular destination for Chinese tourists
• Malaysia and Singapore ranked seventh and ninth in terms of the number of transactions

Demographic findings

Chinese seniors are an up-and-coming tourism trend – transactions made by those born in the 1940s and 50s more than doubled, with average spending per user in this age group jumping to RMB 1,622 (SGD 327).

About 65% who used Alipay overseas during the Labour Day holiday were female. Transactions made by those born in the 2000s increased eight-fold, on average to RMB 506 (SGD 102) during the same period.

In Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of merchants already accept Alipay as a payment platform for Chinese tourists. An earlier joint study from research firm, Nielsen and Alipay found that more than 90% of Chinese tourists would use mobile payment to pay overseas if given the opportunity.

Alipay has been working with various government bodies, financial institutions and businesses in Southeast Asian countries to further enhance guest experiences and enable seamless access to tourism attractions for Chinese visitors.

The increase in Tencent’s revenues in Fintech in 2018 was driven by its take-rate on commercial transactions collected from merchants, cash withdrawal fees and credit card repayment charges collected from users, and the service fees from financial institutions for the distribution of FinTech products such as WeiLiDai and the wealth management products on our LiCaiTong platform.

In January 2019, Tencent completed the transition to the centralized clearing and settlement system and moved all custodian cash to the accounts of the People’s Bank of China.

WeChat Pay launched a new user interface enabling easier access to new features including virtual subsidiary cards for parents and children. It enhanced account management tools for merchants, including cash register, book-keeping, and revenue sharing settlement functions.

WeChat users grew further to 1.098 billion as of December 2018.

The total daily payment transaction volume exceeded 1 billion for 2018, driven by rapid growth in commercial payments, which represented more than half of the number of transactions. The commercial payment revenue more than doubled year-on-year in 2018. The payment platform connects with tens of millions of merchants and monthly active merchants increased over 80% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Tencent boosted its payment penetration in the food and retail industries thanks to features such as Mini Programs and Scan-to-Pay solution in 2018.

In Hong Kong, Tencent launched the first-of-its-kind cross-border mobile payment service in October 2018, which enables WeChat Pay Hong Kong users to conduct RMB-denominated transactions funded by Hong Kong dollars.

Tencent’s cross-border mobile payment service now covers approximately 1 million merchants in Mainland China, including taxi-hailing, food ordering, and highspeed railway ticketing services. The transaction volume of WeChat Pay Hong Kong increased more than 10 times year-on-year.

Tencent launched WeChat Pay Malaysia services in August, offering online transactions such as mobile credit top-ups, flight and bus ticket purchases, and offline transactions at retail outlets, such as supermarkets, fashion and beauty stores.

Globally, Tencent is expanding our footprint by supporting China outbound travelers to make cross-border payments in overseas destinations, and it now offers real-time tax refund services for Weixin Pay users in over 80 airports. Weixin Pay is now available in 49 markets outside Mainland China, supporting cross-border payment transactions in 16 currencies.

Building on its payment user base, Tencent offers FinTech services to under-served consumers, conveniently and at low cost. LiCaiTong, the wealth management platform, helped manage over 600 billion yuan of customer assets as of the end of 2018.

WeBank, Tencent associated online banking business, achieved rapid growth in the outstanding loan balance of its micro-loan product for consumers, WeiLiDai. WeBank also expanded its loan services to enterprises, serving the financing needs for small and micro businesses customers through WeiYeDai.

LiCaiTong enlarged its user base, reaching 100 million accumulated users by the end of 2018. Tencent expanded its FinTech services by rolling out LingQianTong, which enables users to invest the unused cash balance in their WeChat Pay accounts in funds.

China’s payment and online banking mobile app market overview

43 million Chinese traveled overseas in Q3 2018 according to COTRI, an increase of 10% year-on-year. A slow decline compared with the growth of 17% in Q1 and 16% in Q2.

Specifically, 20 million person-trips went to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. And, the rest 23 million person-trips went to the rest of the world. COTRI estimates China’s outbound tourism will see over 160 million person-trips in 2018.

Chinese travelers went on 40 thousand person-trips to Nepal in Q3 2018, an increase of 77% year-on-year. That totaled 110 thousand person-trips for the first three quarters of 2018. The whole figure would break the record of 123 thousand person-trips in 2014.

Chinese spent US$258 billion in outbound travel

60.47 million people traveled to China in 2017, which was decreased by 0.4% year-on-year in H1 2018. Residents in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan accounted for around 80% of the total. The mainland China generated US$32.6 billion from international inbound visitors in 2017, less than Hong Kong’s US$33.3 billion.

China has been the largest source market for outbound travel in terms of population and travel spending. By comparison, there are lots of rooms for the development of international tourism receipts – defined by WTO as the expenditure of international inbound visitors including their payments to national carriers for international transport.

There were 60.47 million people traveled to China in 2017, a much lower increase of 2% compared with 2016. The number of inbound tourists was decreased by 0.4% year-on-year in H1 2018.

Residents in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan accounted for around 80% of the total inbound tourists. Except that, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Myanmar, and the US were the top four biggest source market for inbound travel.

Along with the sluggish growth in the number of inbound tourists, the international tourism receipts were also declined. The mainland China generated US$32.6 billion from international inbound visitors in 2017, less than Hong Kong’s US$33.3 billion.

It might be influenced by visa-free policy and scheduled flight number. For example, Hong Kong has signed visa-free agreements with over 150 countries and regions while mainland China had such agreement with only 20 countries and regions. Surrounding countries like Japan, Thailand, and South Korea were all several times higher than mainland China in visa-free agreements.

The overseas tourists might choose to travel across visa-free Asian countries. Comparative speaking, the 72-hour visa-free policy that several cities in mainland China provided was less attractive.

What’s worse, influenced by air traffic control, Chinese flights was one of the worst when it comes to punctuality. Therefore, China lost quite a lot of revenue from transfer tourists.

The inbound tourism only contributed 13% to China’s overall tourism revenue in 2017, which was 18% in 2016. The global average ratio between inbound tourism and outbound tourism was 27.3 vs. 72.7.

Considering there were 60.47 million inbound tourists, the per capita expenditure was US$537.4. That was only one half that of Japan, one-third that of Thailand, and around one-fifth that of the US. The figure was even lower than US$866 in 2012.

Revenue from visitor export was only increased by 0.6% in 2017, a large drop compared with 9.6% in 2016, according to WTTC. Furthermore, foreign exchange earning from tourism receipts only grew by 3%, much less than 6% in 2016.

The tourism deficit reached nearly US$225.4 billion in 2017, according to the report from UNWTO. The same figure was US$110.4 billion in H1 2018, according to CNTA.

Nevertheless, China had invested US$154.7 billion in tourism and the related industries in 2017. Such investment was only behind that of the US (US$176.3 billion). The investment in tourism was expected to grow at 6.5% annually in the next 10 years.

Thailand generated US$57 billion in the international tourism receipts in 2017, the biggest earner across Asia. That contributed 21.2% to GDP, directly and indirectly. China is the biggest tourist source for Thailand.

China golden week travel insights 2018; decline in flights & expenses

Chinese went for 972 thousand person-trips to the Philippines in the first 9 months of 2018, a high growth of 34.9% year-on-year, surpassing the total of 968 thousand person-trips in 2017.

A total of 5.36 million visits to the Philippines were made by international tourists in the first three quarters. China was the second biggest tourist source, representing 18% of the overall foreign tourists.

South Korea remained to be the largest tourist source for the first 8 months with 1.06 million visits, a 0.91% drop. It accounted for 21.84% of the total entry number.

The top source countries and regions for tourist to the Philippines were South Korea, China, the U.S., Japan, Australia, Canada, British, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and India. Philippine projected to receive 7.4 million visits from foreign tourists.

The Philippines grants for visas upon arrivals for qualified Chinese citizens in June 2018. The duration of stay is 30 days, which could be extended to the longest of 6 months. Besides, with the increasing direct flights between China and the Philippines, more and more Chinese traveled to the Philippines.

One of Philippines’ famous sites Boracay Island that has been closed for environmental improvement and renovation since April was reopened on 26 October. The Boracay Island received 2 million visits in 2017, 370 thousand of which were made by Chinese tourists. For Boracay Island, China is the biggest source of tourists.

Check out 8 types of Chinese outbound travelers here.