French hotel group Accor SA announced that a third of its planned 100 hotels in China will be built in the country's tourist destinations to capitalize on the growing leisure travelers and to escape depressed room tariffs in cities due to oversupply.

Accor Asia Pacific Chairman Michael Issenberg said domestic tourism in China has been growing at an unprecedented rate, making the local tourist destinations more attractive than most urban tourist spots, and Accor is making sure it will position a third of its 100 planned Chinese hotels in those areas.

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"Five years ago, it was all cities. Now, people who acquired wealth want to travel," said Issenberg.

Around the world, Accor owns, operates and franchises a total of 3,600 hotels, ranging from budget hotels, economy lodgings, and luxury accommodations. In China, it already has a property on ski slopes near the border with North Korea, a beach resort in Hainan Island and another property in a Chinese forest part. It already has 128 hotels in China.

Accor's plan to build hotels in tourist destinations outside of cities can be a wise move considering that domestic tourist trips are expected to grow by about 12 percent from this year to 2018, based on the data released by Euromonitor International.

Experts said tourism investments are moving outside of cities due to air pollution and heavy traffic that have been discouraging both local and foreign tourists. In Beijing, for instance, the tourism bureau said it has noticed a drop in the number of tourists visiting the capital in the first quarter of this year from the previous quarter.

Accor is just one of the many global tourism and leisure companies that are targeting China's domestic travel market. Walt Disney Co is opening a US $5.5 billion theme part resort in Shanghai next year while Carnival Corp is dispatching another cruise ship, the fourth of its kind, in China next year.

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, China became the largest outbound tourism market in the world in 2012, overtaking Germany. This year, at least 100 million tourists are expected to travel abroad and more than that figure is going to the different domestic destinations.

TagsAccor China, Accor Hotel, Tourism China, China Hotels