China's Outbound Tourism Boom to Continue

Chinese outbound tourism has witnessed "an explosive growth" in the past 10 years and the trend is likely to continue in the next decade, Jane Sun Jie, CEO of a major Chinese travel agency, said on Monday. Chinese mainland travelers made more than 120 million outbound trips in 2015, 313% more than 2005, according to a report released earlier by Ctrip, China's leading online travel agency, Xinhua News Agency reported.  In the first half of 2017, 62 million overseas trips were made by Chinese tourists, the China National Tourism Administration said in a statement last month. "Their trips abroad have created, directly and indirectly, up to 100 million jobs worldwide," she said. The Ctrip CEO noted that China's tourism cooperation with BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will become closer and tourists can enjoy benefits in everything from visas to flights in the future. Figures released by the World Economic Forum in 2017 showed that tourism last year stimulated the economy by generating more than $7.6 trillion globally, supporting over 292 million jobs, or one in 10 jobs worldwide.