International Trade

China In Comfort

November 2007
Joseph Baron, International Trade Today

If the figures are to be believed, travel to China is really going to take off – pardon the pun – in the next few years. And it won’t be just in business trips either.

According to the strategic forecast released by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), China will become the largest inbound destination and the fourth largest outbound tourist country by the year of 2020. The total tourism income will be more than £217m, between eight to 10 per cent of China's gross domestic product for that year, and the number of inbound tourists will reach 210 million.

Air travel in China has already jumped by more than 95 per cent over the past five years and the country is set to become the world’s second biggest civil aviation market huge increase in demand, China is expected to require 1,600 new aircraft by 2020, and a report by Dublin-based Research & Markets into airport financing for Asia Pacific says that between 2006 and 2010 the country will have 108 new airports.

China is now even looking into building its own jumbo aircraft in a bid to cater for a booming aviation industry. Initially, its target would be the domestic market, but, later, it would hope to compete with Boeing and Airbus on the international front.

But it’s not just the aviation industry that is undergoing radical change – so is the hotel sector. The China National Tourism Administration announced earlier this year nearly doubled in five years (12,930 last year from 7,358 in 2001).

When money is no object

Mr Jones is a lucky man. His export/import business in China has been doing rather well lately, and his company has said that – as a reward... continued on page two >

 

 

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