BEIJING: The foreign tourism up by 20 per cent in China in 2014 as over 100 million people travelled abroad in the corresponding year.
The official Xinhua news agency said that about 107 million Chinese ventured overseas in 2014 for leisure, citing a report by the China Tourism Academy, an institute under the China National Tourism Administration.
Xinhua quoted Dai Bin, the head of the academy, as saying the rising number of tourists going abroad was due to more relaxed visa policies in receiving countries. The report predicted that the number of Chinese tourists heading overseas will increase more than 16 percent next year, Xinhua said.
The academy’s report also said that Chinese tourists spent $164.8 billion while overseas last year, a total about four times higher than in 2008, Xinhua reported. Chinese tourist numbers have dramatically increased over the past two decades as the economy has boomed to become the world’s second largest.
