China’s inbound tourist arrivals down 0.4% to 69.23 million in H1 2018

For the first half of 2018, the number of domestic tourists in China was 2.826 billion, an increase of 11.4%, and the number of inbound and outbound travelers reached 141 million, 6.9% more than the same period last year.

International tourism receipts grew by 2.8% to USD 61.8 billion in the first six months. Foreign travelers were the top spenders, spending a total of USD 35.4 billion (+4.6%). The expenditure of Hong Kong visitors dropped 2.5% to USD 14.2 billion, whereas the expenditure of visitors from Macao and Taiwan increased 4.2% to USD 4.2 billion and USD 7.9 billion respectively.

Total tourist arrivals to mainland China reached 69.23 million in the first half of the year, down by 0.4%. Arrivals from Hong Kong declined 2.7%, but still comprised the bulk with 39.08 million travelers. The number of non-Chinese visitors increased by 4% to 14.82 million, and the number of visitors from Macao and Taiwan increased 1.1% and 4.1% to 12.33 million and 3 million respectively.

Arrivals by ship, plane, rail, bus and on foot accounted for 3.3%, 17.1%, 0.8%, 22.5% and 56.2% respectively.

The number of inbound overnight visitors grew by 2% to 30.72 million, 13.88 million of them (down by 0.8%) were from Hong Kong, 11.44 million (up by 4.4%) were from other countries, 2.71 million (up by 4.9%) from Macao and 2.7 million (up by 4.1%) from Taiwan.

By region, Asia accounted for the lion share of China’s inbound visitors, at 76.7%, followed by Europe (12.1%), America (8%), Oceania (1.9%) and Africa (1.3%). By age group, more than half (50.3%) of the travelers were aged 25-44, and 28.3% of them aged 45-64, 13.9% aged 15-24, 4.4% aged above 65, and the rest 3.1% below 14. By gender, 60.1% were men and 39.9% women.

In H1 2018, the top 10 visitor source markets for China are Myanmar, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, the United States, Russia, Mongolia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.

For the first half this year, about 71.31 million Chinese traveled abroad, an increase of 15%.