Chinese tourism statistics – The Numbers Game

Dear readers,

Several statistics published last week in China provide new data for the Chinese outbound tourism for 2018, but do not necessarily help to clarify the development – rather the opposite.

On several occasions throughout 2018, CTA China Tourism Academy published a total number of outbound trips from Mainland China by Mainland Chinese citizens of 130.51 million. In the “2017 Tourism Statistical Bulletin”, published on Dec. 28^th, 2018 gave a rounded figure of 131 million.

Last week, however, a new report from CTA was widely cited in Chinese publications, saying that 140 million outbound departures from Mainland China took place in 2018, which represented an increase of 13.5% from 129 million departures in 2017. The small difference between 131 and 129 million aside, it is nevertheless clear that 129 million plus 13.5% does not result in 140 million, but in 146 million. If the 140 million number is correct, the starting amount would have to in fact be 123 million […]

For the rest of the article please see the following link: https://paper.li/cotriweekly#/

Image source: Tourist holding a selfie stick by Stephanie Kraus Source: Flickr Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)