Mastercard’s latest edition of its Global Destination Cities Index shows mainland Chinese are still traveling overseas for both business and leisure in larger numbers than ever before.
In the last 10 years China has risen from No 7 to No 2 in the global rankings, behind only the US.
Unlike most other major source markets, its middle class segment is still growing significantly.
China was attributed as a major driver behind a surge in travel across the Asia-Pacific region with Thailand and Japan its top two overseas destinations.
In fact along with mainland China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan account for nearly 19% of global travel spend, the report says.
"What’s most fascinating for us from an Asia Pacific perspective is the fact that, not only has this region’s spend contribution to global travel expenditure nearly doubled in the last decade, but we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of percentages of the populations that are travelling overseas," said Mastercard Asia Pacific VP for data and services, Rupert Naylor.
This is very evident in mainland China, India and Indonesia, countries where only about 1% of their population on average took overnight trips to the 200 destinations covered by the Mastercard report.
The Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index ranks the 200 cities based on third-party research, incorporating cross-border spending.
The travel industry contributed a record $8.8 trillion in 2018, generating an estimated 319 million jobs.
