According to a new report released by leading brokerage house CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, China will become the largest source of outbound tourists by 2020 at 115 million.

Despite using a more conservative methodology CLSA's estimate exceeds the well documented World Tourism Organisation (WTO) estimate of 100m by 2020.

China is working from a low base with annual outbound departures as a percentage of the population at approximately 2% which compares to 15% for Japan, 35% for Taiwan, 25% for US and over 100% for the UK. Stripping out travel to Hong Kong and Macau, which represents around 70% of the total, and considering that only 4% of China's urban population has traveled overseas, CLSA expects huge growth potential in the country's outbound tourism.

Other findings include growth in leisure travel over business travel and individual travel becoming more popular than group travel. The Billion Boomers generation – young, career-driven consumers – are spreading their wings. Still, Chinese spend less than those from most countries when traveling due to budgeting considerably less for accommodations. However, spending on shopping is very high: the CLSA reports finds that Chinese shop up to 80% more than Japanese. CLSA finds that luxury goods and cosmetics are the most sought after items.