China leads the world in outbound global travel, according to data from the World Tourism Organization. (Photo: Yin Miao)

New York (People’s Daily) – China continues to lead global outbound travel, having spent $258 billion on international travel in 2017, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)’s latest figures on tourism.

UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2018 Edition’ shows that China continues to lead global outbound travel, having spent $258 billion on international tourism in 2017. This is almost one-fifth of the world’s total tourism spending in 2017, which stood at $1.3 trillion, some $94 billion more than 2016.

The new report also illustrates that international tourist arrivals reached a total of 1,323 million in 2017, some 84 million more than the previous year, thus setting a new record. The sector has now seen uninterrupted growth in arrivals for eight straight years. 2017’s growth was the highest since 2010, led by the regions of Europe and Africa, which received increases in arrivals both under 10 percent.

International tourism receipts increased by 5 percent in 2017. In addition to the $1.3 trillion in receipts that destinations earned, international tourism generated another $240 billion from international passenger transport taken by non-residents. This raised total tourism exports to $1.6 trillion, or $4 billion a day, which corresponds to 7 percent of the world’s exports.

Last year’s results were driven by sustained travel demand for destinations across all world regions, including a firm recovery by those that have suffered from security challenges in recent years. Strong outbound demand from virtually all source markets, including rebounds from major emerging economies Brazil and the Russian Federation, benefited both advanced and emerging destinations.

Along the top markets and destinations in the world last year, Spain rose to become the second most-visited destination in terms of international arrivals, after France. Japan entered the top ten in tourism earnings in tenth place after six straight years of double-digit growth. The Russian Federation re-entered the top ten of world spenders at eighth place.

Available data for early 2018 has since confirmed international tourism’s continued strong growth, with a year-on-year increase of 6 percent in arrivals between January and April.