:: Free Traveler ::

A man never lost for a lively quote, Chinese tyrant Mao Zedong once noted: “A mess can be a great thing.” So it is with travel in modern China. Chaos reigns. At overcrowded Beijing Capital International Airport domestic flights rarely leave on time and delayed travelers can’t find a seat in the waiting room. In China’s biggest cities, highways and streets alike are crammed.

In this mess lies business opportunity. Rising incomes, the popularity of tourism and China’s hosting of international events like the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics will keep the country one of the world’s fastest-growing travel and tourism markets for years to come. The World Travel & Tourism Council predicts 8.7% annual growth until 2016, at which point China will be second in the world only to the U.S. as the world’s number one tourism market, worth $354 billion. “The Chinese in the new millennium are the equivalent of the Japanese in the late 1980s,” says Spencer White, an investment strategist at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong.

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