Outbound tourism in international tourism

Generally speaking, tourism consists of international tourism and domestic tourism, and international tourism includes outbound tourism and inbound tourism. According to the internationally accepted definition, "outbound tourism refers to the tourism activities of residents of one country crossing the national border to another country" (Jia Faer 2000). Due to the special political background and historical reasons, China's outbound tourism refers to China citizens' travel activities across national boundaries and certain specific boundaries to other countries or specific administrative regions. Specifically, "China residents (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents) go to other countries (including Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions) for leisure, entertainment, sightseeing, vacation, visiting relatives and friends, medical treatment, shopping, attending meetings or engaging in economic, cultural, sports and religious activities, and their continuous stay abroad does not exceed 18. In other words, the outbound tourism we are talking about actually includes overseas tourism, border tourism and tourism activities to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

According to the definition of World Tourism Organization (WTO), China citizens' outbound travel has a long history, especially for business travel and other overseas travel activities, even in the most closed era. However, if this kind of outbound tourism only refers to entertainment and self-expense, this kind of activity is a new phenomenon that gradually appears after the implementation of the reform and opening up policy.