The Growing Importance of Gastronomy Tourism in China

China’s Tourism Industry

Post-World War, modern tourism became an emerging industry. China's modern tourism journey began a little later, whose formative years lie between the founding of new China and the early stages of reform and opening-up (Fu, 2014). In 1978, the number of visitors from foreign countries was 1.81 million, grossing 263 million dollars as foreign exchange earnings from international tourism. It set a new high in China’s tourism history, as it exceeded the sum of earnings of the previous 20 years, and the dawn of China's modern tourism development began.

With the deepening of reform and opening-up, the tourism industry has developed rapidly and has become an important engine of economic growth. It has bought socio-economic benefit to the communities through employment and income earning opportunities.

According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China [NBSC], the domestic tourism market grew steadily from 2010 to 2019. In 2010, the number of domestic tourists was just over 2.1 billion and by end of 2017 it had exceeded 5 billion, reaching a new high. In the next two years this number increased by 1 billion, rapidly reaching 6.006 billion by the end of 2019, with a growth rate of 8.43% compared with the same period in 2018. Consequently, the total income from domestic tourism also showed a significant year by year growth in the decade starting 2010. In 2010, the income was at 1,257.98 billion and by 2014 it increased by nearly 1.5 times, exceeding 3,031.19 billion. From 2015 to 2019 it maintained a growth rate of more than 10% and the total income was at 6,000 billion in 2019. The following figures show China’s number of domestic tourists and the total income from domestic tourism from 2010 to 2019 (Figure 1 & 2).

Figure 1.

Number of domestic tourists in China from 2010 to 2019 (in billions)

Source: NBSC

Figure 2.

China's total income from domestic tourism 2010-2019 (in billion yuan)

Source: NBSC

An industry’s contribution to GDP is an important indicator of economic development and industry structure. The contribution of tourism to China's GDP has risen from 10.39% in 2014 to 11.05% in 2019. The World Travel and Tourism Council [WTTC] (2020) predicts that the contribution rate will reach 12.9% in 2028. The chart below depicts contribution of China's tourism industry to GDP from 2014 to 2019 (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Contribution of China’s tourism industry to GDP 2014-2019

Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China

It is noticeable that tourism plays an important role in economic development and people’s life. The previous deputy director of the China National Tourism Administration [CNTA], Sun (1994), once called tourism “A Sunrise Industry Forever”.