• China
• Outbound Tourism
• Pull factors
• Tourism Demand
• Tourism Year

Over the last few decades, the evolution of international tourism has been characterised by remarkable growth throughout the world.
Among all the countries in the world, China is the one that has recorded the fastest growth, both in terms of departures and expenditure, becoming the first source market worldwide.
The combination of the dramatic economic growth and the opening-up policies has made leisure tourism market more accessible for Chinese middle class. Besides Asian destinations, an increasing number of overseas countries is gaining the interest of Chinese prospective travellers and, in this context, Europe plays a key role. European authorities have realised the growth opportunities of this market; therefore, they are making efforts to stimulate Chinese arrivals, promoting initiatives such as “2018 EU-China Tourism Year”.
This thesis will be focused on the determinants of Chinese tourism demand in European countries.
Before performing an empirical analysis, it will be provided a critical remark related to problems arising from the lack of data for some countries and the discrepancy between data furnished by different sources. Eventually a solution will be proposed in order to make comparison between countries possible and to understand which European country is the most preferred by Chinese tourists.
After having provided an overview of Chinese tourism in the most favourite European destinations, an econometric analysis will be carried out using two different estimators. Both aim to understand which pull factors (economic, social and competitive) influence Chinese tourism demand in European countries. One of the estimator is a static one: Ordinary Least Square, while the other is a dynamic one: Generalised Method of Moments-System.
The results confirm that economic, social and competitive factors impact on Chinese tourism demand in Europe.
Finally, the last section will provide a brief comment on competitive factors, since they are those elements on which policy makers could intervene more easily with initiatives like the “EU-China Tourism Year”.