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Outbound tourists create big deficit
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CHINA is set to see its tourism deficit exceed US$100 billion this year as Chinese traveling overseas spend much more than foreign visitors back home, according to a report by the China Tourism Academy.
“A tourism deficit greater than US$100 billion is a sure thing this year,” said CTA Director Dai Bin, citing explosive growth in outbound tourists and a lackluster inbound tourism market.
About 116 million Chinese are expected to travel and spend US$155 billion overseas in 2014, up 20 percent from a year ago, Dai said.
China has become the world’s main source of international tourists in recent years, as a richer middle class seeks experiences overseas, said the report published on Monday.
The expected net tourism deficit reflects the increasing purchasing power of Chinese abroad, as many splash out on luxury goods in European cities such as London and Paris.
Last year, per capita spending by Chinese traveling overseas was almost three times the amount foreign visitors spent in China, according to Fan Zhiyong, an associate professor under the School of Economics with the Renmin University.
Chinese tourists made a total of 98.2 million trips overseas last year, climbing 18 percent from a year earlier, according to the China National Tourism Administration.
For the first half of 2014, the administration estimated that Chinese spent more than US$70 billion on their overseas trips during the period, up 20.7 percent year on year.
As Chinese spend more time and money overseas, competition to attract them is intensifying among foreign countries.
Currently, Chinese can travel to 151 countries for tourism purposes, with Senegal the latest destination under a memorandum of understanding between the countries this month.
Internationalize renminbi
India is also preparing to launch a tourism promotion campaign in Chinese media in the coming months, while introducing audio recordings in Mandarin at monuments.
China first recorded a tourism deficit in 2008, when the global financial crisis discouraged foreign spending in the country while a stronger yuan encouraged tourist outflow.
Zhao Xijun, vice dean of the School of Finance and Economics under Renmin University, said the tourism deficit could help internationalize the Chinese renminbi currency as the yuan is converted and used internationally by a growing number of tourists.
The most-visited overseas destinations for Chinese, such as Southeast Asian nations, Australia and South Korea, as well as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, have seen renminbi settlement business boom.
The internationalization of the yuan and Chinese cross-border consumption support each other, Zhao said,
The tourism deficit will offset a huge part of the trade surplus China accumulated through its merchandise trade.
China posted a total trade surplus of US$200 billion in the first eight months of 2014, an increase of 30.3 percent from a year earlier, according to customs data.
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