The number of overseas tourists to China continued to drop in 2014, making it the third straight year the figure has fallen, though the number has shown signs of recovering. Still, the domestic tourism sector stands in contrast to China's outbound tourism sector, which continues to grow rapidly and is sending billions of dollars to other countries and regions. Among factors such as a sluggish global economy and the fluctuating value of the yuan, China's poor air quality has largely contributed to the decline in inbound tourists.
When Winn Chen, a resident of Chicago, the US, arrived in Beijing two weeks ago, he was stunned by how much the city had changed since his last visit eight years ago.
"[During] this trip, my favorite part was probably discovering how truly cosmopolitan [Beijing] has become," said Chen, who was born in Beijing but grew up in the US.
Chen said he made the trip to Beijing "solely to take time off, relax, and not be a tourist per se but to actually live in Beijing as an adult."
Although he still has relatives in the city, he rented a room for himself in a hutong in Houhai, a historical and scenic neighborhood in Beijing, to live as an expat. He appreciated the hutong culture and enjoyed a modern Beijing, because of the tremendous hospitality in the city.
"[Hospitality] has never been a problem in China, the people are the best," he told the Global Times on Tuesday.
However, by the end of his two weeks in Beijing, the air pollution took a toll on him.
"That kind of became a sour point toward the end of my trip," he said.
Many other overseas visitors share Chen's sentiment about the air pollution. According to a tourism report released last week, air pollution is the main issue that has turned some people away from coming to China.
A slower fall
Although there has been some improvement, tourism to China declined in 2014, according to the latest report by the China Tourism Academy (CTA), a Beijing-based research institution under the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).
The total number of overseas tourists to China shrunk 0.45 percent to about 128.5 million in 2014, according to the report. Although the number of tourists is still down, it isn't falling as fast as in previous years.
On the bright side, China is generating more money from tourism. Tourism revenue jumped 10.16 percent year-on-year to $57 billion in 2014, according to data released in August by the CNTA.
The CTA also noted that China has become the fourth most popular tourist destination in the world, after France, the US and Spain.
Room to grow
The contraction in inbound tourists stood in contrast to China's growing number of outbound tourists. In 2014, the number of Chinese tourists traveling overseas grew 19.49 percent year-on-year to 109 million. They spent $164 billion, a figure that is expected to grow by $100 billion by 2019, Bloomberg reported in February.
Meanwhile, China's inbound tourism sector remains "some distance" behind its Asian neighbors, especially Japan and South Korea. The number of tourists traveling to Japan and South Korea in 2014 grew 29.4 percent and 17 percent, respectively, the Chinese news portal yicai.com reported on Monday.
Although tourism to China will continue to "stabilize," it has more room to grow. But experts said many areas, which have contributed to the decline of inbound tourism, need to be improved.
