Issue #155: Reflecting on 10 Years of 'The New Chinese Traveler'
A decade is a very long time in Chinese tourism.
Welcome to Issue 155 of Asia Travel Re:Set.
10. Years. Ago.
A decade ago this week, my book The New Chinese Traveler: Business Opportunities from the Chinese Travel Revolution, was published by Palgrave (now Springer).
The blurb says it provided: "business-facing, insider knowledge of the Chinese domestic, inbound and outbound tourism sectors… exploring in depth, the value ascribed to Chinese travelers and the strategies to maximize business opportunity."
Back in 2014, the world - let alone the tourism industry - looked very different.
So let’s follow that train of thought.
Thanks for checking in.
Firstly…
"Macao did it. Singapore too. Now Thailand looks to build casinos to attract tourist dollars". Thailand has published a draft Entertainment Complex Bill designed to legalise gambling, and unlock investment in casino resorts. So, what happens next? Thanks to Charmaine Jacob for including some of my comments in this article for CNBC.
Secondly…
Hannah Pearson and I took The South East Asia Travel Show on the road. During this week’s Tropical Coastal City Tourism Event in Sanya we enjoyed a debate with Dr Chuwit Mitrchob, Deputy Director of the Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (DASTA), about the developmental challenges ahead for Thailand and South East Asian nations.
And This…
“The vastness of China’s population, the rapid rate of urbanization and striking middle-class income growth in recent years, plus a proven willingness to spend big when overseas, have forced a planetary rethink about travel dynamics.”
Introduction: Beyond the Middle Kingdom - The Makings of a Travel Revolution (The New Chinese Traveler)
“How do we attract Chinese tourists to Ipoh?” Substitute the destination and that question - posed at this week’s conference by a tour operator from Malaysia - is one I have been asked many times over the past decade.
No magic formula exists. China is continental in size, and its huge outbound market is complex, dynamic and multi-layered. Instead, my answer always begins with a question: “Which segments of the market do you want to attract?”
There never was a definitive Chinese traveller. Yet China is still a market referred to in a homogenous sense, ie “Chinese tourists.” That’s why I never liked the book’s title, but my suggested version “The Ever-Changing Chinese Tourism Market” is clunky.
Xi Jinping, Xiaohongshu and WeChat
Ten years is a long time in Chinese travel and tourism - particularly when 3 of the intervening years involved international isolation.
Domestic travel preferences and consumer trends look very different now to 2014. Chinese outbound travel is still rebuilding and in 2024 is a curious mix of the old and the new. A great deal has altered post-Covid, but expectations and behaviours were evolving at a rapid clip before 2020. That said, the supply side tourism landscape has been transformed by the pandemic experience and changing traveller priorities.
Looking back provides some illuminating contexts…
The New Chinese Traveler was published in 2014, the year that outbound trips from China surpassed 100 million for the first time. Ten years later in 2024, a similar milestone will be achieved for the first time since 2019.
Back in 2014, Xi Jinping celebrated his first year as China’s President. Ctrip turned 15, and the high-speed rail network was 6. WeChat was 3-years-old. Xiaohongshu had been founded the year before as an online travel shopping guide, the same year BYD began developing its own car designs. COMAC’s first C919 prototype was a year away, and Douyin would not launch for another 2 years.
But, as I wrote in the intro:
“One thing that analysts mostly agree upon is that China is having a transformative impact on the way the global tourism industry operates, finances and promotes itself.”
Background
The New Chinese Traveler was the culmination of a decade's work in and around China's travel industry. It began while working at the 2004 ASTA World Travel Congress in Hong Kong, where I chatted with mainland tour operators and agents. Outbound travel was at an early stage, but they foresaw that the rising popularity of domestic tourism would encourage more Chinese people to take overseas trips.
Over the next 10 years, I spoke to myriad tourism executives and travel operators from across China and around the world - and many travellers. The first words were written on New Year’s Day 2014 in Melbourne, the final sentence on a train to Venice.
In between, chapters were written in Beijing (during a very cold Spring Festival), Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Macau, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles and Oxford.
Favourite Quotes
Too many to choose, but here are 5 that capture the travel contexts of the mid-2010s:
1) Jamie Y. Lee, Director of China Services, Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board:
“We looked at the models of outbound tourism development in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, and in those places it took around 10 years for the market to move from group package tours to FIT. In China, it was around half that time.”
2) Sandra Rwese, Kenyan-born tourism analyst:
“When I speak to Chinese colleagues about my country, all they know are Kenyan marathon runners. That’s not sufficient to build a positive permanent impression that rakes in tourism foreign exchange. Conversely, when asked about Bali, South Korea and Vietnam, their immediate associations with those destinations are honeymoon vacations, medical tourism and magnificent culinary tours.”
3) Batiste Pilet, Manager Central Projects & Partnerships for Switzerland Tourism:
“Our aim is to provide Chinese travelers with ‘Swiss made’ ski lessons in their own Chinese language. We recognized the need in Switzerland to sensitize the ski industry to the needs and behaviors of Chinese customers.”
4) Johnny Chang, CEO and Founder, Spa Solutions:
“Five years ago, I visited Uluwatu, Bali and was impressed by the quality of service at two of the best resorts. Recently, I returned and found them overrun by Chinese travelers, and the service attitude was dismissive. My partner and I had a spa treatment and then lunch in the resort restaurant. The first thing we were told was ‘There’s a minimum charge to eat here.’ This is not the type of service you would expect from this standard of resort, and these brands need to be careful as word travels fast and they’ll quickly lose favour with high-end Chinese travelers.”
5) Patsy Yang, Shanghai-based fashion journalist and luxury brand consultant:
“My travel plans usually emanate from an idea in my mind, then I’ll research the specifics online or through friends’ recommendations. It’s very spontaneous. Most of all, I want to experience the lifestyle like a local and try the most authentic foods and traditions. I don’t like to sightsee like a tourist. I avoid ‘must-go’ landmarks. For example, I didn’t see the Taj Mahal.”
“Pending an Economic Downturn”
Having recently re-read the book, it stands up as a primer on China's tourism sector development, which accelerated through the 2010s and is now reshaping after Covid.
This paragraph pretty much sums up the mood at the time…
“Earning a ‘winning share’ of the Chinese market is a white hot subject that is unlikely to take flight any time soon, particularly as most projections indicate that – pending an economic downturn, which can never be discounted – Chinese outbound volumes are locked on an upward curve. In whatever form and scope to which it may evolve, the Chinese Travel Revolution is only just beginning.”
The New Chinese Traveler is still in print, and available to buy HERE.
My new book, The Return Of Chinese Outbound Tourism: Changes & Experiences in the Post-Pandemic Era, co-written with Prof. Wolfgang Arlt, will be published by Routledge in Fall 2025.
And, that’s a wrap for issue 155.
The Asia Travel Re:Set newsletter will be back with a new format in mid-September.
Until then, find me at LinkedIn, The South East Asia Travel Show and High-Yield Tourism.
Happy travels,
Gary