An industry that is going places

Foreign tourism in China has come a long way since 1978, when the reform process initiated by the former leader Deng Xiaoping began and just 230,000 visitors came from abroad. @Body-Infobox2:Last year, there were 126.6 millions visits by tourists from overseas, a 3 per cent drop on 2008's figure of 130 million. This year, the China Tourism Academy (CTA) is forecasting 136 million foreign visitors.

Such has been the growth in outbound tourism by Chinese recently that last year China experienced its first tourism deficit since 1982. Chinese tourists spent US$4 billion (Dh14.69bn) more overseas, a total of $43.7bn last year, than foreign tourists spent in China. Estimates suggest the deficit will grow to $5bn or $6bn this year as China's economic growth outstrips that in most other parts of the world, allowing more Chinese people to travel overseas.

In China, international travel is dwarfed by the domestic market, which last year reached 1.9 billion visits and this year is expected to grow by 12 per cent to 2.1 billion trips, according to the CTA. These trips will generate 1.1 trillion yuan (Dh591.46bn) of spending, an increase of 14 per cent from last year, it forecasts.