China's tourism revenue posts double digit growth in 2017

BEIJING - China earned 5.4 trillion yuan ($850 billion) from tourism in 2017, an increase of 15.1 percent, the China Tourism Academy said on Tuesday.

Chinese tourists made 5 billion domestic trips and 131 million overseas trips in 2017, up 12.8 percent and 7 percent respectively.

Last year saw 139 million inbound trips, a rise of 0.8 percent from 2016, of which 75 percent were from Asia.

Preliminary data showed the industry contributed 9.13 trillion yuan to GDP, accounting for 11 percent of economic output.

Tourism created 80 million jobs.

China is the world's largest source of outbound tourists and the fourth largest destination of inbound tourists.