Changing face of Chinese travellers

• Reflection on meaning of life during lockdown may spur stronger responsible tourism desires
• Hyper-competition as tourism businesses devise new marketing lures
• Non-China destinations perceived safe will win over Chinese travellers

All eyes are on tourist movements in China now, as they not only serve as the first indication of recuperated demand, but also as a trajectory for how domestic and outbound travel may eventually recover.

Industry experts are growing hopeful as China is already showing green shoots of recovery. During the Qingming Festival on April 4, the country saw some 43 million domestic travellers, and on Labour Day weekend from May 1 to 5, this number rose to 115 million.

Furthermore, local flight capacity has recovered considerably; by the start of May, it was back to 75 per cent of last year’s, reported OC&C Strategy Consultants. ForwardKeys also found that domestic air arrivals jumped by 250 per cent between the first and last week of April 2020.

These optimistic patterns were enabled by a number of factors, including a government Health Code software hosted on WeChat and Alipay, locally referred to as the Alipay Health Code. The state-mandated app records citizens’ daily temperatures and issues them a health rating, which can allow or deny them access to public areas and travel.

“There is noticeable pent-up demand, especially in leisure travel, and a lot of people are planning to make trips over the next two months. Christmas and Chinese New Year may see a huge potential rebound and we expect to see even more demand than last year,” forecasted Steven Kwok, associate partner, OC&C Strategy Consultants.

Kwok also observed a shift in preferred destinations. Previously popular city-based locations like Beijing and Shanghai have given way to sightseeing destinations like Lijiang and Qingdao.

In a survey of Chinese travellers, COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute found that the majority of travellers aged 34 or younger had voted for “a different form of tourism, more respectful of the visited communities and of nature”, as well as “avoiding mass tourism destinations and large cities” and “not wishing to visit certain countries and regions that are at risk from a health point of view”.

COTRI’s CEO, Wolfgang Georg Arlt, noted that less than half of the respondents aged 35 and up had agreed with these statements.

However, he acknowledged that there would also be a significant segment of people, regardless of age, who had the luxury of time during the lockdown to reflect on the meaning of life.

“They now appreciate how fragile and transient life and nature is, and perhaps for them, travel desires change and they may become more interested in responsible tourism,” said Arlt, adding that the motivation to travel for bragging rights could diminish.

Read the full article at TTG Asia: http://www.ttgasia.com/2020/05/27/changing-face-of-chinese-travellers/