Changes in demographic and spending habits of Chinese outbound visitors could benefit developing countries in Southeast Asia.
In the first half of 2017, total outbound trips from the Chinese mainland reached 62.03 million, up 5 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) in August.
While the rate of expansion slowed from about 10 percent in recent years, it was still enough to help the global tourism sector achieve strong growth.
According to the UN World Tourism Organization, in the first half of 2017, the number of global tourists reached 598 million, increased 6 percent on year-on-year basis.
Chinese travelers accounted for about 10.4 percent of the total, according to the organization.
Though the spending growth of Chinese tourists is set to cool from the annual rate of 20 percent in the past seven years, it will remain strong in 2017 with an expansion of 12 percent expected, according to a report from the World Travel and Tourism Council.
As China continues to strengthen cooperation with countries and regions along the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative routes, Chinese travelers to those destinations will also increase, according to the CNTA.
In a post published in May, the CNTA estimated that the number of Chinese visitors to the B&R countries will reach 150 million by 2020 with expenditure of USD 200 billion.