With the improvement pf living standards pf the Chinese people, Chinese citizens have been able to go abroad as

tourists since 1997. China has now approved 52 countries and 2 regions as tourism destinations. China received 109.0382 million overseas tourists in 2004; Foreign exchange from international tourism reached US $ 25.739 billion. A total of 28.8529 million Chinese citizens went abroad in 2004. Of this total, 14.81 million were on private visits, accounting for 73.2 per cent of all out-going visitors. According to the World Tourism Organization, China is among the top 10 nations in terms of outbound tourism. Travelling abroad was only a dream for most Chinese 25 years ago. But it is coming true for many more today thanks to a booming economy and more freedom and rights. Enhancing mutual understanding through opening up more countries to Chinese vistors will create benfit for all. The year 2004 saw 1.102 billion domestic tourists. Income from domestic tourism stood at 471.1 billion yuan(US $ 56.6 billion). The total international and domestic tourism chalked up to 488.2 billion yuan(US $ 58.87 billion), accounting for 4 per cent of China’s GDP in 2003.

China’s direct employees in tourism industry reached 6.4874 million; while indirect employees topped 32.44 million.

Star-rating hotels in China reached 9,751 with 992,800 guest rooms by the end of 2003. Of those hotels, 198 are five-star hotels; 727 four-star hotels, 3,166 three-star hotels, 4,864 two-star hotels, and 796 one-star hotels.

China boosted 13,361 travel agencies, of which 1,364 were international travel agencies(of 1,364 international travel agencies, over 500 such travel agencies are authorized to organize Chinese citizens to travel abroad), and 11,997 were domestic travel agencies in2003.