"In my own travels in China I was always surprised about the extent of Chinese tourism and the spending that takes place by a part of the Chinese tourist, hotel restaurant bills are paid in cash, we stayed in the Sheraton Hotel in Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan province (I can strongly recommend this as soon your kids are what older, it is breathtaking admittedly it was the golden week (in October) hotels were practically fully booked and the room prices were 3300 RMB (330 euro) a night excluding breakfast and internet connection, a few western tourists, it is mainly Chinese tourist, standing by the hotel desk I could not help looking at the wads of cash been paid by families! The roads to the park were lined with big hotels, in spite of that I would not recommend last minute bookings!

"Sheraton was the most expensive one, we could compensate in Chizong were we only paid 100 RMB including evening meal with home brewed wine and breakfast. Except for the wine I can recommend that place, it must have been the cleanest and cheapest place we ever stayed in!

"In Yunnan, Lijiang Dali Zhongdian (ShangriLa) Deqin some western tourists but by far mainly Chinese, Lijiang Dali the old town is like one big tourist shopping and restaurant centre, very pretty but you had the feeling that no self respecting tourist could leave without at least a few bags of souvenirs and some of them very expensive

"We stayed about 6 weeks in that area travelling with an SUV and driver meeting lots of Chinese tourist doing exactly the same (but only for 2 weeks in general) majority came from Beijing and Chengdu.

"All in all we noticed the difference between our previous travels, more and better hotels a lot more Chinese tourist and a hell of a lot more spending power on average by the Chinese tourists, and as some one told us, the tourist industry outside Xian, Shanghai Beijing or Gullin is focused on Chinese tourism. Western tourism is hardly relevant in numbers or spending "

Eoin Treacy's view Thank you for this informative email. I know what you mean about the golden week crowds. We stayed at a hotel focused on the domestic market in Hangzhou, in 2007, during the October festival, and the area around the lake was inundated with people.

We have stayed at a number of hotels around China aimed at the domestic market and found the accommodation to be of universally high quality but lacking somewhat in the quality of service for children. Facilities such as changing stations and wheelchair access are virtually unheard of in most of China so travelling with two small children can be difficult at times.

The Shanghai Expo, which runs until late October, clearly demonstrates the expected trend of the global tourist industry with most countries highlighting their attractiveness as a destination for travellers. At 400,000 people a day, the Expo has been a resounding success and has been patronised almost exclusively by Chinese. The rough and tumble of queuing among such a multitude is an experience in itself but perhaps not something one might rush to do again.

According to Mrs. Treacy 'grey income' is an aphorism for under-the-table-income either from bribes or simply by paying for one's social life using the company expense account. It is largely accepted that both are fairly ubiquitous so while the figure of $1 trillion in grey income sounds high I suspect it is probably pretty close to the mark. (Also see David's piece in Comment of the Day on August 11th and above).