Inner Mongolia's tourism industry in 2013

By Liu Yufen (chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2014-02-28

The tourism industry of North China'ss Inner Mongolia autonomous region grew in 2013 by 24.36 percent year-on-year. The tourism revenue, amounting to 140.35 billion yuan ($22.9 billion), accounted for 8.34 percent of the regional GDP, up 1.3 percentage points compared to the previous year; an increase of 2.3 percentage points was witnessed in terms of the tourism revenue’s proportion of the tertiary industry’s added value, which was 22.83 percent.

With an increase of 12.32 percent over the previous year, the number of domestic tourists travelling to Inner Mongolia reached 66.13 million. Revenue for the industry saw an uplift of 24.34 percent year-on-year to 134.37 billion yuan.

Some 260,000 people took a career in the tourism industry in the region, an increase of by 30,000 year-on-year. The number of travel agencies totaled 901.

There are 276 A-class tourist destinations in Inner Mongolia, with two of them recognized as 5A scenic spots, 65 as 4A and 96 as 3A. Up until the end of 2013, starred hotels in the region amounted to 328, with eight five stars hotels, 35 with four stars and 121 with three stars.

Compared with the domestic market, the inbound tourist market saw a relatively mild growth in Inner Mongolia.

In 2013, the region received 1.62 million inbound tourists and earned foreign exchange of $962 million, up 1.54 percent and 24.66 percent respectively year-on-year. Most foreign tourists, amounting to 790,000, came from Inner Mongolia’s neighbor, Mongolia. However, the number of Mongolian tourists shrank 2.83 percent year-on-year. Tourists from Russia, the region’s second largest inbound tourist resource, grew 14.41 percent to 638,500 and brought the region foreign exchange of $443 million.