Issue #163: Tracking the Top Trends in Chinese Outbound Tourism for 2025

What can we expect from the Chinese tourism market in its 3rd year of recovery?

Nov 09, 2024

Welcome to Issue 163 of Asia Travel Re:Set.

Hello from a grey and cloudy Oxford.

This week, I participated in the Chinese Outbound Tourism panel at World Travel Market in London. We recapped some key trends in 2024 and looked ahead to 2025.

So let’s follow that train of thought….

Thanks for checking in.

Tracking the Top Trends in Chinese Outbound Tourism

From sports events and self-drive EV tourism to shifting shopping preferences.

“While current outbound travel volumes have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, Chinese tourism is projected to rebound by 2026, reaching 15% above 2019 levels.”

That quote is taken from an article, called Chinese tourists return to global markets, published by China Daily to coincide with Thursday’s Chinese Outbound Tourism panel debate, which wrapped up the World Travel Market conference in London.

Entitled Understanding The Power of Chinese Travellers: Trends To Capitalise On, and Pitfalls To Avoid… the session was expertly moderated by China Daily’s Mingjie Wang (author of the above article), and featured myself, Alhasan Aldabbagh (Saudi Tourism Authority), Sienna Parulis-Cook (Dragon Trail International), Emanuel Lehner-Telič (Austria Tourism) and Dave Goodger (Tourism Economics).

We were specially allocated 75 minutes to tackle one of the biggest questions in global tourism: What can we expect from the Chinese tourism market in 2025? Many thanks to everyone at the well-attended session, and for the excellent questions from the floor.

NB: Last month, Sienna and I looked back through the 2024 Chinese outbound travel year so far in the context of October’s Golden Week public holiday. Click above to listen to our discussion on The South East Asia Travel Show:

The timing was apposite. Friday marked 22 months since China reopened its borders after nearly 3 years of Covid-induced isolation. While expectations are improving for 2025, smart destinations are framing their strategies to attract Chinese visitors through the rest of the decade. Saudi Arabia and Austria are good examples.

Both countries have done their homework by assessing domestic consumer and travel trends in China, and carefully analysing changing patterns of demand, aspiration and expectation across its vast and diverse outbound market. In particular, Alhasan’s intriguing insights on sports tourism in Saudi Arabia and Emanuel’s detailed thoughts on the post-pandemic appeal of hiking and nature travel were illuminating.

Across 75-minutes, we discussed a broad range of topics, from culture and heritage appreciation to sustainable experiences, shifts in beach culture to social media trends, and flight capacity changes to the statistical outlook for 2025 and beyond. Here are 5 top-of-mind takeaways:

1) Complex Group-to-FIT Shift

“Chinese tourists aren’t returning” was a common refrain by European tour operators at WTM. They are, but the market is evolving. Since the mid-2010s, a transition from Group to FIT was identified. This accelerated in 2024, but it’s not a straight-line shift. China’s outbound market remains a complex tapestry of organised and independent travel, with various semi-customised sub-segments, and overall smaller group sizes.

2) “Xiaohongshu, Xiaohongshu, Xiahongshu”

China’s breakout social lifestyle app of the pandemic is not new - it was founded more than 10 years ago. Since Covid, it has morphed into a definitive search platform for travel experiences among younger travellers. Less branded than other social networks, ‘Little Red Book,’ or simply ‘Red’, offers in-the-moment user-generated photos and videos shared by travellers for their peers. Expect a global surge in 2025.

3) EV Self-Drive Tourism

It seems I have been talking about this ad nauseam all year, but it is a super-hot trend in South East Asia - where the supply of EVs (or New Energy Vehicles, NEVs) by Chinese automakers is increasing. So, too, is demand among tourists to drive them - and among ride-share app drivers. With new Chinese EV models being launched all the time, this will continue to be a shape-shifting trend.

4) Rethink Shopping

Contrary to media reports, the allure of in-trip shopping has not fallen off a cliff. It is diversifying, though, away from status buying of luxury brands to products and brands that are local and deliver added lifestyle value. Cosmetic face masks in Seoul are an example. Not cheap, not expensive, but offering distinctive quality and value.

5) Rail Tourism

China’s high-speed rail network is driving new trends in domestic tourism, and influencing travel patterns overseas. The China-Laos railway continues to gain momentum. More daily services, routes and tour packages will be added in 2025. An ongoing build-out of rail infrastructure across South East Asia bodes well. NB: The New York Times will publish a story on this topic soon…

Asia Travel Re:Set keeps you fully updated of the hottest topics in Chinese tourism. In case you missed any of the China-themed articles published in 2024, just click the links below…

It all kicked off on 28 January, with this comment in Issue #126:

“Media across the region are fuelling excitement that 2024 will see significant growth in outbound travel after a subdued first year of post-pandemic activity.”