The China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) has published its forecast for next year’s total number of Chinese outbound tourism trips. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the total number of border crossings made by Chinese nationals in 2018 forecast by COTRI is 154 million, representing a 6.3% year-over-year increase when compared with the 145 million projected for 2017.

Within the total of 154 million border crossings foreseen by the Germany-based organization for 2018, 68 million will end in Greater China (Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan), equalling a 2% year-on-year increase, while the remaining 86 million trips will be made to destinations in the rest of the world, which will represent a year-over-year increase of 10%.

This means that a total of 56% of Chinese outbound trips in 2018 will be made to destinations beyond Greater China. Given 2016 was the first year in which more Chinese outbound trips were made beyond Greater China than within it, COTRI said it’s forecast shows that this pattern is becoming firmly entrenched and ‘rest of the world’ destinations are still benefitting from double-digit growth in Chinese outbound arrival numbers.

The forecast is made in the fall 2018 edition of COTRI’s China market report, which also discusses various aspects of the outbound Chinese travel market.