China, a huge country of relatively modest economic means, leaves a disproportionately large and growing footprint on the global tourism map. Last year, 83 million Chinese tourists travelled abroad, and they spent €74 billion on their travels, mainly to Asia, but increasingly to the US and to Europe - where 3.1 million came. No more than 17,000 travelled to the island of Ireland. That is now set to change, as the tourism sector has an opportunity to tap into the world's fastest growing tourism market, China.
Within five years Tourism Ireland expects the number of Chinese tourists to this country to reach an annual rate of 50,000. Certainly, Ireland has much ground to make up in the competitive race to attract more Chinese visitors to this country. The first sign of serious intent to take the Chinese business and tourism market seriously came in 2011. Minister of Justice, Alan Shatter introduced the Irish Visa Waiver Programme, both to facilitate trade with China - and 16 other countries - and to attract tourists from China.
Since then, visitor numbers - mainly from China - have increased by 30 per cent. The British government recently announced changes to its visa programme for Chinese visitors, to encourage more to come. And, with a common travel area in operation between Ireland and the UK, Ireland is well placed to benefit from a larger pool of Chinese tourists in Britain. Talks on reciprocal visa arrangements, enabling free movement between both jurisdictions for visitors to the common travel area, are expected to conclude successfully, with the changes effective from 2014.
Tourism accounts for 4 per cent of economic activity in the Republic, and involves some 200,000 people. For a country this remains so heavily reliant on export led growth for economic recovery, the “invisible earnings” the tourism sector can generate, by fully exploiting the immense growth potential that China’s rapidly expanding tourism market now offers, cannot be underestimated.