(ECNS) -- China topped the world in the number of outbound tourists as well as overseas consumption last year, while Chinese tourists were the largest spenders in Japan, according to a report by Economic Information Daily on Friday.
Recent data released by the World Tourism Organization showed that the number of China's outbound tourists reached 120 million in 2015. The organization predicted that nearly 6 million Chinese will travel abroad in the upcoming Spring Festival holidays, making China the largest source of outbound tourists in the world, the paper said.
The World Tourism Organization report also highlighted overseas spending by Chinese tourists, which has been growing at a two-digit rate since 2004.
In addition, data from the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) showed that Chinese tourists' spending in the country accounted for 40 percent of the total consumption by foreign tourists in 2015, it was added.
The average spending by Chinese tourists was ranked the highest, reaching 283,800 Japanese yen ($2,393), 100,000 yen more than tourists from other parts of the world, according to the JTA.
Li Jinzao, director of the China National Tourism Administration, said earlier that China's tourism investment maintained a robust growth in 2015, topping 1 trillion yuan ($152 billion) in total for the first time in history, up 42 percent from the previous year. Tourism has become a new force driving economic growth and consumption expansion, he said.
Last year, inbound tourism saw the first positive growth in the past three years, while the total number of domestic and foreign tourists in China topped 4.1 billion, up 10 percent year-on-year, according to a recent Chinese tourism blue paper. China's tourism revenue totaled 4 trillion yuan in 2015, up 12 percent year-on-year.
