China could have 800 million outbound tourists over the next 5 years

China’s President Xi outlined at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum how much the world stands to gain from a rising China. He said 500 million Chinese tourists will go abroad over the next five years. This is a conservative estimate.

In 2013, 98 million Chinese traveled abroad. That’s an increase of 18% compared to the year 2012, with the outbound expenditure reaching $128.7 billion USD, an increase of 26.8% on last year. In 2014, outbound tourism is set to rise to about 114 million and this will have an estimated total tourism expenditure of 140 billion USD.

China international travelers to the United States will grow 172% from 2013 to 2019, the largest total growth percentage according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

High growth rates and large growth volumes are expected for China (24%) and it is expected to increase a total of 3.1 million visitors, or 172% through 2019, and produce the third largest number of additional visitors to the United States behind Mexico and Canada.

China outbound tourists on average spent RMB 20,000 (US$3,252) during travel per person and shopping is an important part of their spend in oversea trips (57.8%)

It is estimated that almost 100 million Chinese traveled out of China in 2013 with this number expected to reach 200 million by 2018. This would mean about 800 million outbound trips over the next 5 years.