Chinese travellers spent $261 billion on foreign travel in 2016, a 12 per cent increase from 2015, marking a new record for global outbound tourist spending.

Chinese tourists have been the largest outbound travel market since 2012 and, last year 135 million travellers spent more than any other country’s outbound travellers, according to the United National World Tourism Organization.

The World Travel & Tourism Council also predicts China will be one of the 10 fastest-growing markets for leisure travel spending through 2026.

Following the United States, Chinese travellers were the second-largest market for contribution to global gross domestic product last year. Countries benefiting the most from outbound Chinese tourism are Japan, Korea and Thailand, but the United States and Europe also see increased spending from China.

UNWTO’s secretary-general, Taleb Rifai, said global outbound tourist spending results for 2016 are promising. “Despite the many challenges of recent years, results of spending on travel abroad are consistent with the four per cent growth to 1.2 billion international tourist arrivals reported earlier this year for 2016,” Rifai said in a statement. “People continue to have a strong appetite for travel and this benefits many countries all around the world.”

Following China, the United States was the second-largest outbound travel market, spending $122 billion last year on foreign trips. Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy were also among the top 10 for tourism spending.