Within the last five years, China has already outpaced countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Germany by number of outbound tourists, shared Dr. Jiang Yiyi, director of the Institute of International Tourism Development, China Tourism Academy during a conference session at ITB China.
While China is already the world’s largest outbound market with 123 million trips last year, indicators show that the market is but at a nascent stage of development.
Within the last five years, China has already outpaced countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Germany by number of outbound tourists, shared Dr. Jiang Yiyi, director of the Institute of International Tourism Development, China Tourism Academy during a conference session at ITB China.
But despite the sheer volume, figures from the World Bank show that China’s travel per capita and consumption remains significantly behind major tourism generating regions such as the United States, which leads the regions at US$2,000. This is followed by Korea and Japan, at slightly below US$1,500.
Cost effective travel remains a priority for a majority of Chinese tourists.
According to a 2016 survey by China Tourism Academy, with more than 35% of respondents indicating that the average amount spent on a single trip ranges between 5001 to 10,000 yuan (US$785-1,570), followed by slightly over 20% indicating an expenditure amount of between 10,001 to 15,000 yuan.
In the same survey, more than 70% of respondents said that they stayed at either budget or mid-tier hotels (two- to three stars). Luxury hotels were the choice of accommodation of 20% of respondents.
In terms of choice of travel agencies, outbound tourists relied on criteria such as brand name (35%), reputation (30%), friends’ recommendation (30%) and price (25%) to make a decision.
Family travel accounted for the majority of outbound travel (55%), followed by travelling with friends (20%).
Jiang also noted a shift in consumer preferences, with tourists opting to purchase services over products. “The ‘buy buy buy’ mentality is now shifting towards aspects such as sightseeing and other experiences,” she said.
A distinct FIT segment relying heavily on online booking channels has emerged. Almost 70% of tourists in this category have used online channels to book hotels, compared to 10% who said they used telephone booking. The figure for tour booking is similarly at almost 70% for online platforms, as compared to friends’ recommendation (10%).
Chinese tourists are also beginning to venture further afield, although a majority are clustered around the neighbouring countries like Hong Kong and Macau. This is followed by Thailand, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, US, Singapore and Malaysia in the top ten.
As the demand for more niche destinations grow, Jiang highlighted that the key opportunities lie with countries European such as Ukraine and Czech Republic, which each saw a 300% leap in Q1 2017, followed by Finland (280%), Iceland (250%), Switzerland, Poland and Denmark at 200%, and Spain (120%), and UK (100%).
The main reason behind this spike in demand for destinations in the EU are visitors from first-tier cities (50%) and second-tier cities (35%), with 11% from third-tier cities and 4% from fourth-tier cites.
Moreover, outbound numbers are also expected to continue to increase substantially. This is considering the fact that 90% of Chinese citizens still do not own passports for outbound travel according to the China National Tourism Administration.