Perception of China as a Tourist Country - Dissertation Example

Download file to see previous pages The tourism industry is one of the fastest-growing industries across the world and it is one of the highly contributing industries in the country’s economic growth. With the advent of time, the tourism industry has diversified into three major market segments i.e. business market, leisure market and recreational market (Zheng, 2010). China is among the most highly recognized and well-reputed tourist destinations as it offers ample recreational opportunities for tourists. In a report by World Trade Organisation (WTO), cited by Hu et al. (2009), it is expected that China will be the number one destination of most tourists worldwide and each year, more than one hundred tourists will be going to China for having a great time.
In general, the tourism industry can be segmented into three crucial parts which are inbound, outbound and domestic; each one of them encompasses different aspects of travelling. Domestic travelling is done within one’s home country; inbound tourism is described as when one non-resident does travelling in a particular country and the outbound term implies when the residents of the country travel outside the home country (Jin Jiang, 2009).
1.2 Development of Tourism and Hospitality in China
Among the Asian countries that are attracting numerous tourists every year, China entered the market a bit late but it has been successful in capturing its target market. The concerned authorities first worked on the strategy required to create an attractive tourism industry in China and a lot of developmental efforts were done by the Chinese government to reach their targeted goals (Madrid, 2011).
In the early 1950s, the Chinese government realized the potential of attracting tourists worldwide and set up special institutions for handling the increasing trend of business tourists. However, in the 1970s, the tourism and hospitality industry was considered to be part of the foreign affairs and was not believed to be part of the commercial operations, but at that time, the concerned authorities realized the need of transforming China from nobody to the desired destination image for the Western tourists. ...Download file to see next pages Read More