Travel

Just in from China— young tourists

- Carol Matlack

When Ronnie Hou finished her master’s degree last spring, her parents gave her a trip to Seattle—a city that has fascinated Hou since her teen years in the central Chinese province of Henan, when she got hooked on Grey’s Anatomy. “I love travelling!” says the 24-year-old, who’s planning a Christmas trip to New York City and after that, “Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea.”

Hou is part of an army of Chinese millennials that’s reshaping global travel. Chinese age 18-34 made 82 million trips abroad in 2016, accounting for 60 percent of the country’s foreign travel and spending more than $150 billion, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates. By comparison, Americans of all ages made 75 million journeys abroad last year. As more young people travel, Chinese outbound tourism is expected to grow 8.5 percent annually through 2021, more than double the global rate, Mastercard Inc. predicts.