Although China is showing competitive momentum in international trade, earnings from the trade surplus are gradually being offset by the rapid growth of the services industry, Liang Jianzhang, co-founder and chairman of online travel agency Ctrip, told news portal Jiemian.com.
Liang said that China's current trade surplus in commercial goods is almost US$400 billion annually, but it is offset by the services trade, around US$300 billion. Most of this comes from tourism, accounting for US$200 billion, he noted, speaking at the annual forum of the Center of China and Globalization (CCG) in Beijing.
Liang warned that China will probably enter a trade deficit within five years if the country does not loosen the policies for inbound tourism.
China makes money through the international commercial goods trade, but Chinese people spend a lot of money on outbound tourism, with overseas providers of services.
Thus, Liang suggested dealing with the current bottlenecks that inbound tourism is facing, mainly referring to visa problems, internet problems and poor publicity.
China’s visa policies have become stricter than in the past, and foreign tourists have to prepare lots of documents and the process is complicated, slow and expensive.
Not all information and websites can be browsed in the Chinese mainland, so many foreign tourists feel inconvenienced if they want to share photos on social media, such as Instagram or Facebook.
Finally, Liang said, there should be more positive publicity and marketing to overseas consumers about tourism in China.
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