The World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) 2023 Economic Impact Research (EIR) shows that China’s Travel & Tourism sector’s GDP contribution is forecast to grow more than 150% this year. The industry is set to contribute CNY 9.9TN to the economy this year, edging closer to the 2019 pre-pandemic high of CNY 12.27TN.
Despite the effects of the pandemic spanning into 2022 in China, WTTC is forecasting the sector to create almost 11.5MN jobs this year, recovering one in two of the jobs lost to reach 74.7MN. This means around one in 10 workers in China, are directly or indirectly employed in the Travel & Tourism sector.
International visitor spend in China is forecast to grow more than 50% this year to reach more than CNY 306BN. Although this is positive growth, it is still almost 70% below the 2019 peak.
The largest maze on the coast has opened in the city of Siófok on the southern shore of Lake Balaton. It was built from 200 hay bales and covers an area of 600 square meters
A virtual tour of the ancient Strashnaya Cave, located in the Krasnoshchekovsky district of the Altai Territory, is now available on the "3D Archaeology" website (a project of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
A round-the-world expedition, "Sailing Without Borders," featuring people with physical disabilities, is set to launch in November 2024 and conclude in 2026
