ABSTRACT
The central theme of the present study is the impact of tourism on local economic development in China.
The booming of tourism to and in China is a quite recent phenomenon. Yet, with 42 million border arrivals and 4.6 billion US$ receipts in 1993, China has become one of the leading destinations of international tourism within a short period of time. Still more spectacular is the rapidly rising travel demand of the Chinese people themselves. It is estimated that in recent years some 300-400 million Chinese have, in one form or another, taken part in domestic tourism per annum, yielding a total revenue of 86 billion RMB yuan.! Possible statistical inaccuracies notwithstanding, a mere look of the rough orders of these figures suggests that the· recent growth of the travel and tourism industry in China is enormous by any standard.
