China is running the world’s largest tourism deficit. How can it plug the gap?

Chinese tourist traffic to the world is growing but not the other way round. To decrease its deficit in trade in services and improve the world’s understanding of the nation, China must develop new ways to enhance visitors’ experiences

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Tourists pick tea leaves on a plantation in Hengshanwu village in Anji, Zhejiang province. To attract visitors, China could meet the growing demand for “experience tourism”. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 11:00am, 22 Jan 2020Updated: 11:04am, 22 Jan 2020

This is set to be another record-breaking year for Chinese tourism. Come Lunar New Year, Chinese tourists are expected to take 7 million outbound trips during the extended holiday, which would exceed the 6.31 million trips made in the Spring Festival period last year.

In 2020, outbound trips could pass the 100 million mark for the first time. In 2018, that figure grew by 15 per cent, to 83 million (excluding trips to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). Overall, the Chinese are now taking more overseas trips and spending more money than tourists from any other country.

In contrast, China’s inbound tourism growth has been less impressive. In 2018, foreign tourists made 30.5 million trips to China. That is barely one-third of France’s visitor tally that year, and also slightly less than Japan’s and Thailand’s tallies.

The yawning gap between China’s outbound and inbound tourism has left the country with a tourism deficit of 52.5 million trips in 2018, up by more than 20 per cent year on year. China is running the largest tourism deficit in the world, which accounts for a major chunk of the country’s US$258 billion deficit in trade in services in 2018.

On the one hand, this growing gap is cause for celebration. It reflects the growing number of Chinese who have the means to travel abroad. However, it also raises the question: why is it that China, for all its abundance of natural and cultural wonders, continues to punch below its weight when it comes to attracting foreign tourists?

There is no simple answer – a myriad of factors shape international tourism flows. China now boasts impressive hard infrastructure, including scores of new airports and a high-speed rail network that transports visitors to most destinations across the country within a day. However, the country’s “soft infrastructure” is a different story.

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