BEIJING, China – With more countries set to follow the US lead on eased visa requirements for Chinese visitors, outbound travel from the mainland is tipped to become the biggest driver of growth for airlines based in the region.

International traffic for Chinese carriers will grow more than 15 percent this year on the outbound tourism boom, Citi forecasts in a report, outpacing an expected 10-12 percent rise on domestic routes.

“The US recently loosened visa requirements for Chinese visitors. The UK, Japan and South Korea also promised to relax the visa application process. We expect more countries to follow this trend in the near future, which should significantly boost international traffic,” it said.

According to the White House, 1.8 million Chinese visitors contributed US$21.1 billion to the US economy in 2013. A meeting of Apec leaders in November resulted in an agreement between China and the US to extend the visa validity for business and tourism from one year to 10 years.

“There will be significant growth of business for airlines in the transpacific business,” said Will Horton, senior analyst with the Centre for Aviation.

“Mainland carriers stand to gain the most as they are strong in outbound sales but weak in foreign markets,” he said, though other carriers, including Cathay Pacific, will also benefit as the total market gets bigger for everyone, he added.

“There was large growth in the Thailand-Japan market after Japan made it easier for Thais to visit,” he said.

Air China leads the mainland carriers on North American routes, followed by China Eastern Airlines. Both are likely to secure more growth than their competitors, he said.

UBS Asia transport research analyst Eric Lin estimates Cathay Pacific accounts for up to a quarter of traffic on China-US routes factoring in transits via Hong Kong.

Cathay Pacific expects increased demand on its US flights arising from the visa moves.

“The relaxation of tourist visas for Chinese citizens to the USA is certainly good news to us, as this will increase the frequencies of passengers visiting the USA, which will in turn increase the demand on our flights.”

“We have seen robust growth on our traffic flow between China and the USA over the years. The relaxation comes at the right moment as Cathay Pacific will be introducing our Boston service next year.”

Victor Lee, commercial director for Hong Kong and Macau at Texas-headquartered American Airlines, said: “Relaxed US visa requirements will not only bring more Chinese visitors to the US, but also to Latin America”, as a US tourist visa gives entry to various other countries including Mexico and Panama.

Lin said Chinese airlines’ share of seats on China-EU and China-US routes was below 50 percent, which makes them a promising bet.

“There will be earnings growth for sure, but revenue growth will be below volume growth,” he said, as carriers vying for market share may compete at the expense of ticket prices.

“Relaxed visa policies will bring in more travelers, but most of them will not be corporate travelers, which are the real profitable passengers for airlines,” he said.

Japan said it would announce the details of its new visa policy for Chinese citizens in the spring after promising to loosen requirements in November.

Horton said: “Japan has set ambitious tourism targets – 20 million by 2020 and 30 million by 2030, from about 10 million in 2013. The only way to realise these targets is with visa liberalisation.”