China Inbound Tourism in 2016

China inbound tourism maintained a steady growth in 2016. About 138 million inbound trips were made into China, a 3.5% rise over the same period of the previous year. Overnight visitors also showed an increase of 4.2% to 59.27 million. The corresponding income increased to USD 120 billion, an increase by 5.6% over the same period of 2015. Below is the specific statistics:

	Number of Arrivals (Unit in 1,000,000 persons )	Growth over the same period of 2015(%)
Total Arrivals	138	3.5
Foreign Visitors	28.15	8.3
From Hong Kong	81.06	2.0
From Macau	23.50	2.7
From Taiwan	5.73	4.2

 

	Number of Arrivals (Unit in 1,000,000 persons )	Growth over the same period of 2015(%)
Total  Overnight Arrivals	59.27	4.2
Foreign Visitors	21.65	6.7
From Hong Kong	27.72	2.3
From Macau	4.81	3.1
From Taiwan	5.09	5.0

 Visitors from Asian countries in 2016 were about 67.5% of the total amount. Europeans and Americans were up to 17.3% and 10.7% respectively. The visitors from other countries can account for 4.5%.
 The visitors from South Korea make it the top source country once again for China inbound tourism. Based on the number of visitors, the order of countries are South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Myanmar, United States, Russia, Mongolia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, India, Thailand, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Germany and UK.
 Majority of visitors are sightseers, making up 33% or 10.39 million of them. Business travel came second with about 5.98 million. 15% or 4.72 million were for work purposes. 0.94 million or 3% were mainly to visit friends and relatives.
 Based on the achievement in 2016, it is estimated that the inbound tourism may show a rise of over 3.5% in 2017 with total inbound trips surpassing 143 million. International tourism income will increase to USD 126 billion, an increase of 5.0%, compared with 2016.
  Beijing:
Beijing is one of the most popular cities among overseas tourists. In 2016, about 4.165 million inbound overnight travelers visited Beijing. Americans ranked the top for about ten years. The visitors from Canada showed the largest increase by 17.4%, reaching about 0.153 million. Those from France showed a drop by 13.8%, reaching about 0.132 million.

 Shanghai:
Shanghai received 8.54 million visitors in 2016, an increase of 6.77% over the same period of last year. With about 0.79 million visitors, Japan came first as the largest group, an increase of 3.12%; South Korea came second with around 0.75 million visitors, showing an increase by 13.08%. USA was still one of the major source countries with 0.696 million visitors, an increase by 9.39%.

 Guilin:
Till the November in 2016, about 2.20 million inbound tourists visited Guilin, an increase of 7.43%. Total tourism income was CNY 54.951 billion, a jump of 23.54%; the international tourism income was USD 1.184 billion, an increase by 16.92% over the same period in 2015.

Data Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism of People's Republic of China

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