Skift Take
One market where the U.S. leads China in a trade imbalance: The United States is taking in way more tourists from China than it’s sending. Pollution, bureaucracy, and bang for buck are the major factors.
Editor's Note: Skift launched a series, Gateway, as we broaden our news coverage geographically with first-hand, original stories from correspondents embedded in cities around the world.
We started with regular reports several times per month from tourism hubs Beijing, Singapore and Capetown. Gateway Beijing and Gateway Singapore, for example, signify that the reporters are writing from those cities although their coverage of the business of travel will meander to other locales in their regions. Read about the series here, and check out all the stories in the series here.
The nine-figure outbound travel stats for China are sizzling, along with the multi-billion dollar numbers associated with Chinese travelers spending worldwide. Click through any number of Skift stories and read how domestic and international air routes are expanding, hotels are being constructed and opening. China is still one of the best travel industry stories going.
Except when the subject turns to inbound tourism to China.
Despite featuring a number of bucket list sites like the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army, visitors from outside of Asia aren’t finding China to be their cup of tea.
Nine years ago, a visit to China was on just about every travel list, spearheaded by Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 summer Olympics. But instead of being a transformative, coming-out party for the Chinese capital the
