The People’s Republic of China has changed from a country that discouraged tourism
as a useless bourgeois activity into one of the major source markets for international
tourism. In excess of 30 million Chinese travelled across the border in 2005, yet
they are only the tip of the iceberg of the Chinese who have acquired the taste,
money and freedom for international travel.
China’s Outbound Tourism is the first book written about this major development
using a multitude of sources from China and around the world. The topic is
approached from many different angles, using methods from the fields of economics,
political sciences, sociology, semiotics and cross-cultural studies. The book explains
the economic and social background of the surge in tourism in China and the changes
in tourism policy in China since 1949, which moved from prevention through
controlled development to possibly encouragement of outbound travels of Chinese
citizens.
Throughout the book facts and figures are given for the global development as
well as in-depth information about major destinations of China’s outbound tourism
on all continents. The growing importance of tourists from China is however not
just a question of quantity: the text explains the features that distinguish the travel
motivations and behaviours of Chinese tourists from ‘western’ as well as Japanese
tourists and the consequences for product adaptation and marketing methods for
destinations interested to attract and satisfy Chinese visitors.
This ground-breaking and valuable book offers fresh insight into the fact that
already one-quarter of all international tourists are coming from non-western countries
and mainly from Asia. China’s Outbound Tourism indicates some of the future
lines of development in this area before concluding with a look into the future of
tourism.