EDITORIAL: 2017 outbound data trends

The China Tourism Academy (CTA), a department of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), and leading Chinese online travel agency Ctrip have released their ‘2017 China Outbound Tourism Travel Report’ covering their statistical outlook for the whole of last year.

The report concluded that the annual total of outbound trips made by Chinese passport holders amounted to 130,510,000 (130.51 million), representing year-on-year increase published as a conveniently round 7.0% higher than 2016’s published total of 122 million.

Since the process of outbound travel data for the Chinese market has been known for complications (as illustrated in this column last year), COTRI has been releasing its own statistics since 2015, built upon reports from its own data collection and host sources. Reassuringly, the CTA’s reporting of the 2017 market trends are in line with COTRI’s data for the same period, which recorded a 6.2% year-on-year growth rate in border crossings made by Chinese nationals in 2017. COTRI’s outbound totals for 2017 and 2016 were 145 and 136.85 million respectively.

With Chinese outbound tourism figures continuing to grow at a healthy rate – most especially to destinations beyond the Greater China region – this impact is being reflected in the tourism industry establishment.

Appropriately, the Chinese-founded International Tourism Studies Association (ITSA) recently expanded its international reach with the opening of a new office in London, UK. The organisation, which was founded in Hangzhou, China in 2006, works to foster academic exchange between practitioners and researchers in order to promote tourism growth around the world, maintaining a particular focus on Asia.

The opening of ITSA’s newest office at the University of Greenwich in February 2018 saw speeches delivered by university Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. David Maguire and Prof. Dr. Xinran Lehto, President of ITSA and Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Purdue University, USA, as well as COTRI Director Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, who will serve as ITSA Vice President for Western Europe. Prof. Arlt’s presentation, which was based around the topic of overtourism, is available at the following link.

While ITSA will remain headquartered in Beijing, the establishment of its London office will see plenty of new China-related activities coming out of Western Europe, as ITSA continues its support for a wide range of actors in the European market.

Footage of the opening event of ITSA’s London office can be found on its Twitter and Facebook pages.

For further information, please see: https://intltourismstudies.com/