Wu Wenxue, deputy director of the China National Tourism Association, says China's outbound tourism is changing the business patterns of the world's tourism industry.

Wu made the remarks to local media, and he says China has become the fastest growing tourist export country in Asia and China's rapid growing outbound tourism has increased attention from destinations across the world. The latest statistics show that China's outbound tourism created a new record in 2006 with a total of 34.52 million outbound tourists. In the first three months of this year, the country saw 9.76 million outbound tourists, which was an increase of 14.5% compared with the same period of last year.

Until now, Wu says there have been 132 approved travel destinations for Chinese citizens. In the recent five years, China's outbound tourist number has been increasing by 22.7% annually and outbound travel has become an important component of the country's tourism industry.

Despite the great growth, China's outbound travel market is still immature. This is mainly presented by the limited destination options in Asia chosen by Chinese tourists, concentrated travel periods mainly during the three Golden Week holidays, and poor behavior of Chinese tourists when visiting overseas areas.

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