China’s hottest export: 139.2 million outbound tourists

Consumer demand is growing so fast that China just can’t contain it. Burgeoning consumer demand and an increasingly globally minded populace saw China became the largest global source of outbound tourists in 2015.⁶

120 million Chinese travelled out of China last year, spending a whopping $229 billion overseas and charting a 19.5% increase y-o-y on the 109 million outbound tourists in 2014.⁷

This growth is set to continue growing. Total tourists and spending are estimated to grow 16% and 21% y-o-y⁸ respectively in 2016, which basically adds up to another monster year of 139.2 million projected outbound Chinese travellers!

And this monster spending power of China’s internationally mobile HNWIs, business travellers, and middle-class is having such an impact on travel markets that it’s dominating business class, which is usually the domain of the well-heeled and the high-end.

The Global Business Travel Association Foundation estimates that business class spending by Chinese travellers will increase to $322 billion in 2016 and rise to $420 billion by 2019, overtaking the US market as the largest source of business travel bookings.⁹