The overall changes and regional differences of Chinese inbound tourists\'' tourism consumption:1996~2005
中国入境游客旅游消费总体趋势与区域差异:1996~2005年

Inbound tourism is an important channel for one country (or region) to earn foreign exchange and to solve the employment. The number of inbound tourists and foreign exchange earnings is a main indicator of the country's (region's) tourism development level, while the inbound tourists' tourism consumption level and consumption structure is an important basis to reflect the quality of inbound tourism consumption. This paper takes the cross-section data of inbound tourists' tourism consumption from 1996 to 2005,constructs a series of the characterization indexes and takes an empirical analysis on the changes and the regional differences of the inbound tourists' tourism consumption. The result shows that in the past 10 years, per capita consumption level of inbound tourism has significantly increased, but the consumption is still lagging behind. Chinese inbound tourism consumption structure in "The Ninth 5-year Plan" has more changes,while after "The Tenth 5-year Plan" it goes stable and rational. From the regional differences of per capita consumption, compared with the regional tourism foreign exchange earnings, in the consumption structure of inbound tourists,all kinds of expenditures have shown a steady state, with uneven levels decreased over time. But compared to the level of foreign exchange earnings of tourism, the areas of hosting the more foreign tourists are low in the level of per capita consumption, where the growth of inbound tourists was more dependent on the overall expansion. So,the research conclusion has an important realistic significance to the development of the regional inbound tourism. The research shows that Chinese inbound tourism is still in a large-scale expansion phase. Owing to the effects of consumer inertia, the future increase in tourism consumption level and consumption structure optimization is still faced with many difficult tasks. Therefore, the shaping and improvement of tourism consumption systems and security system will create a relaxed environment for tourism consumption and the optimal adjustment of the tourism products' supply structure will promote the quality of tourism consumption,which will achieve the level of inbound tourism consumption and the simultaneous development of inbound tourism,and achieve inbound tourism development from quantity expansion to quality and efficiency.