The Chinese are coming – with cash and credit cards in hand.

Cities from Paris and London to New York and Tokyo are witnessing shopping sprees by hordes of Chinese buyers, who are spending money like there’s no tomorrow on their favorite foreign luxury brands.

In 2010, more than 57 million Chinese traveled abroad, up 20.4 per cent from a year earlier. They spent a staggering $48 billion in overseas destinations, figures from the National Tourism Administration showed.

Chinese tourists earned themselves the title of the biggest spenders in France and the UK last year. The country’s international travel market is expected to grow by 17 per cent annually over the next decade and to reach some 1.54 trillion yuan ($237.84 billion) in 2020, driven by rising incomes and aspirations, according to a recent report released by the Boston Consulting Group.

However, the other side of the story is relatively sluggish domestic consumption.

The share of private consumption in China’s gross domestic product was 37.3 per cent in 2010, which is much lower than in other major economies such as the US and Japan, where consumer spending accounted for around 60 to 70 percent of GDP.

Many factors contribute to this unequal scenario, some of which come from structural contradictions.

To begin with, having had enough of poverty in the past, some newly-rich Chinese are eager to show off their wealth through high-value consumption. One trend has been to fly to the country of origin to buy renowned foreign brands.

“Moreover, increasingly convenient transnational payment methods and a stronger yuan have made outbound tourism and associated overseas purchasing easier,” according to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics.