Disorganized tourism space: Chinese tourists in an age of Asian tourism

Outbound Chinese tourists¹ have constituted a powerful presence in the global tourism space in the past decade, and have captured the attention of the international tourism industry and media. The rapid growth in the number of Chinese tourists now traveling has been well documented, including some specifics about their travel behavior and interactions with local communities. However, Chinese travelers, as with other non-Western tourists from the developing world, have generally been ignored in mainstream tourism studies. This chapter calls for greater academic attention on Chinese outbound tourism as well as the study of non-Western tourism more generally, in order to better understand the increasingly diverse trends in global tourism and tourist-host interactions. © 2009 Editorial Selection and matter, Tim Winter, Peggy Teo and T C Chang. Individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.