For decades, Chinese greeted each other by asking: "Have you
eaten?" a custom rooted in the country's time-honored food culture.
In recent years those getting richer started to ask: "Have you
bought a new home (or a car)?"
Today, a more common daily greeting has come into vogue: "Have
you been playing abroad?"
Chinese citizens made 25.76 million outbound trips in the first
10 months of 2005, an 8.3-per-cent growth year-on-year, according
to the National Tourism Administration (NTA).
Compared with 20 years ago, the number of citizens going abroad
with a private passport has jumped 50-fold.
"The proportion of travelers on public duty or commercial
affairs has been declining year by year, whereas private trips make
up an overwhelming majority," Liu Kezhi, director of the NTA's
Marketing and Communications Department, said at a press
conference.
The World Tourism Organization predicts China will become the
world's fourth-largest source of outbound tourists by 2020 with
more than 100 million people traveling abroad each year.
What makes Chinese tourists special is not only the number, but
also their spending. In a December analysis, investment banking and
management firm Goldman Sachs said strong demand from China and
increased international travel by the Chinese could combine to add
US$355 billion to its estimate of the luxury goods industry's
medium-term revenue growth.
The amount spent by the average Chinese tourist "is already on a
par with, if not slightly higher than, that of the Japanese,"
Goldman Sachs said in the report.
With growing private income and an increasing number of overseas
destinations open to Chinese tourists, outbound travel is becoming
part of many Chinese people's lives.
In 1997, when the government approved the first batch of
outbound private travel destinations including Thailand, Singapore,
Malaysia, the Philippines, and the Hong Kong and Macao special
administrative regions 5.32 million trips were made in that
year.
The number became 16.6 million in 2002, 20.22 million in 2003
(despite the SARS epidemic) and 28.85 million in 2004, according to
the NTA. The number of approved destinations (countries and
regions) had reached 76 by the end of October 2005.
"Southeast Asia is the most popular destination as a majority of
our customers choose to go there," said Li Weimin, press manager
with
Shanghai's Spring International Travel Agency.
He attributed the boom of Southeast Asian routes to proximity,
relatively low cost, balmy coastal weather, and in many cases, the
availability of Chinese language services.
"These routes are really hot, and it seems no matter how many
airplane seats we book, we can sell them to that number of
tourists," Li said.
According to a survey released at the International Forum on
Chinese Outbound Tourism hosted by the Beijing Tourism
Administration in November, most Chinese outbound tourists do not
travel too far away. It said Asian countries and regions account
for 90.4 percent of Chinese outbound travelers, and eight of the
top 10 outbound destinations of Chinese tourists are in Asia.
But destinations on other continents are catching up.
"There are more and more high-income customers who have been to
the Asian destinations and are willing to see different places,"
said Sun Changwei, general manager of the outbound department of
China Youth Travel Service (CYTS).
"The number of visitors to rich countries such as Britain and
Australia is on the rise, and I think there is still big
potential." He added that tours to new destinations contributed
significantly to the 20-30 percent yearly growth in CYTS' outbound
travel business.
Coupled with the zeal to go is the zeal to buy. According to
Global Refund, an international tax refund service, Chinese
recorded a growth of 41 percent in tax-free retail spending from
January to November 2005 compared with the same period in 2003.
Germany makes up the lion's share of Chinese tourists' shopping
in Europe, as they spent about US$60 million from September 2004 to
September 2005, followed by Italy, Britain, Austria, the
Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, Global Refund figures
showed.
"We discovered that many of our customers, after paying for the
tour package that accounts for 30-50 percent of their budgets,
would spend most of the money on shopping, which is quite different
to Western tourists' habit of spending on accommodations and
services," Sun said.
Travel professionals say there are many reasons for the Chinese
outbound tourists' shopping sprees.
"If you look at some ordinary products in a foreign shop, you
will probably find a 'made in China' tag. There are not many things
worth buying except for those top luxury brands," said Liu Yang, an
outbound tour manager with the Beijing CITIC Travel Co Ltd.
The tax differential between buying overseas versus on the
mainland is also an incentive for Chinese tourists who go shopping,
Li noted. The price of a Louis Vuitton purse on the mainland can be
20 percent higher than in Europe and 10 percent higher than in Hong
Kong.
Fashion accounted for 30 percent of Chinese tourists' shopping
expenditures in Europe, followed by jewellery and watches, and then
souvenirs, leather products, perfumes and cosmetics, according to a
Global Refund report. Louis Vuitton, Armani, and Zegna are the
favorite fashion brands of Chinese tourists, while Cartier and Mont
Blanc make their favorite accessories.
"To most Chinese, the chance to travel abroad is rare, so when
they get there, they want to buy something as a memento or
something they can show off to their families and friends," said
Song Rui, a researcher on tourism with the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences.
"There are business travelers who have their accommodations paid
by others, which gives them a bigger budget to buy things, and
there are tourists who have to select things for their friends at
home," Song said.
However, some travel professionals say they are seeing evidence
that the nouveau-riche spending image of Chinese tourists is
gradually changing.
"There is an increasing number of customers who don't like the
tours with heavy itineraries and more and more are favoring the
ones that give them more free time to see and taste," said Liu, of
Beijing CITIC Travel.
His company recently launched a new week-long tour of Japan
offering business-class cabins or five-star accommodations, with
arrangements of communication with local people and no shopping
recommendations. The tour costs around US$2,000, double the price
of the average sightseeing tour that does include many shopping
stops in Tokyo. The new tour is selling well, Liu said.
"Most of those who choose it have had many overseas experiences
already and do not care much about shopping and taking photos any
more," he said. "They are more interested in spending time to see
the heritage thoroughly, feel the Japanese culture and chat with
local people."
Shanghai's Spring International is another agency that is
adjusting its itineraries to changing tastes. It recently promoted
a 10-day tour to France and Italy in contrast to the traditional
European routes, which may cover seven or eight countries in a
week.
"More and more outbound travelers don't want to travel for
travel's sake; they want more leisure and fun," said Li, of Spring
International. "The nouveau-riche style of travel with heavy
schedules and extravagant shopping will go out of date
someday."
(China Daily February 4, 2006)
