China’s tourism authorities announced on Tuesday that tourism boomed in the country during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday with over 70 percent of trips made within the Chinese mainland.
“According to data from bureaus of major domestic tourist destinations, during the first five days people made scores of times more trips than before,” said an official of the National Holiday Tourism Office.
While Chinese residents traveled overseas, many foreigners came to China to take part in Spring Festival holiday. A group of 20 tourists from Frankfurt joined Dong Jianmin’s family in North China’s Tianjin to celebrate New Year’s Eve. The tourists learned to make stuffed dumplings and watched local festival performances with the family. Cities in South China also attracted foreign tourists. For instance, a group of 180 Japanese tourists arrived in Shenzhen on February 4 for the celebrating Chinese New Year.
By far, China is Asia’s largest source of outbound tourists and the country ranks fourth in the number of overseas tourists it receives following France, Spain and the United States. By 2015, the number of Chinese tourists traveling abroad on holiday is expected to reach 83.75 million, with total revenues estimated at 2.3 trillion yuan.