30 million Chinese travel abroad this year

Nearly 30 million Chinese travelled abroad in the first nine months of the year, up 17 percent as against the same period of last year, a tourist official said Tuesday.

The figure indicates that China remains Asia's largest source of outbound tourists, according to Zhu Shanzhong, a tourism promotion official with the China National Tourism Administration.

Addressing a press conference held on the sidelines of an ongoing tourist trade fair in Kunming, capital city of southwest China's Yunnan Province, Zhu said the growth rate of outbound Chinese tourists has outpaced the average world level.