Inbound tourism boost is new destination

Trip.com Group joined hands with Ant Group and several other travel agencies including Our Tour and launched an inbound tourism proposal at the Global Travel Agents Conference in Kunming, Yunnan province, on Nov 17. They hope to enhance the entire inbound tourism experience by focusing on aspects such as service portals, mobile payments with overseas cards, overseas promotion of domestic destinations, and group-tour quality.

Trip.com Group will build in an inbound tourism service platform on its international website to create a portal for inbound travelers to China.

Our Tour advocates increasing the marketing and promotion efforts for Chinese destinations, optimizing inbound tourism products and routes, and strengthening multilingual communication and tour guide team development.

Ant Group proposes enhancing research and development in cross-border payment technology to support visitors in using electronic wallets and linking foreign cards, leveraging digital payment to boost inbound consumption.

Liang Jianzhang, chairman of Trip.com Group, says that inbound tourism revenue accounts for 1-3 percent of GDP in some major economies. If China's inbound tourism revenue reaches 1.5 percent of GDP, it could generate over a trillion yuan in market growth, Liang says.