Chinese Outbound Travel and Tourism Market Growing Steadily

China Outbound Tourism Industry Continuing its Steady Growth, Global Destinations Gathering at COTTM2025, 24-26 April, Beijing

With the continued international flight resumption, policy shifts in overseas tourism destinations, and in particular, the highly personalized and diversified demand from Chinese travelers, the Chinese outbound tourism industry is continuing to recover and grow steadily.

The recent statistics from the China National Immigration Administration showed that inbound and outbound trips made by Chinese residents during the 2025 Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) 8 days holiday was 7.671 million. An increase of 5% compared to the same period last year demonstrated a strong growth potential of China’s outbound tourism industry.

More industry platforms’ data further verified the growth. The “2025 Spring Festival Tourism Summary Report” released by Ctrip on February 4^th indicated that the overall number of cross-border travel orders during the 2025 Spring Festival holidays increased by 30% compared to last year. Hot outbound destinations for Chinese travellers included Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, the United States, Macau, and Vietnam etc.

In addition, Fliggy, the Alibaba’s travel platform, also unveiled that the outbound tourism during this year’s Spring Festival holiday continued to grow strongly. International cruises, international car rentals, and overseas one-day tours have shown high growth rates, with international cruise bookings increasing by 229% year-on-year. China, Hong Kong, Macao, East Asia, and Southeast Asia remain the most popular destinations for outbound tourism, while the United States, Australia, and France also rank among the top ten destinations.

Qunar released data showing that during the 2025 Spring Festival, Chinese tourists visited more than 2100 overseas cities worldwide, with a year-on-year increase of 50%.

As the only business to business exhibition focusing solely on outbound travel in China, China Outbound Travel and Tourism Market (COTTM) will welcome its 18th edition on 24-26 April, 2025, Beijing. COTTM provides a vital platform for international travel destinations and tourism product suppliers, especially from the long-haul and niche resource destinations, to communicate with the China tourism industry and to set up important partnerships with Chinese travel trade professionals.

The 2025 COTTM Investment Forum will attract about 150 participants from investment associations/government authorities, tourism investment management, hotel investors, brand management organisations, tour operators, infrastructure providers, tourism and amusement facilities and operational system providers etc. 

It is projected that over 300 exhibitors from 50 destinations will exhibit this year. Our exhibitors contain a diverse mix of International Tourism Boards, Embassies and destination resource suppliers. Additionally, we expect a strong visitor audience of over 4,000 outbound tour operators from all over China will visit COTTM2025, which will be held on 24-26 April at the New Hall of the National Agricultural Exhibition Centre in Beijing.