Are we really serious about the emerging Chinese Visitor Market?
Are we really serious about the emerging Chinese Visitor Market?
By: DJ Halcro
More than 40 million Chinese travel abroad each year so it is critical to develop tourism ties now and learn what the expectations and wants are.
Projected by the world tourism association Chinese outbound travel will be the largest outbound market in the next five to ten years.
Where are they going now? What are the top destinations for Chinese tourists, Europe, Japan, Australia, and in the past year, South Africa. The arrivals increased over 10 percent, one of the fastest-growing Chinese tourist destinations. South Africa hopes for an increase to 2.5 million by 2010. Thailand has 1 million Chinese Visitors a year. Mexico is hoping to attract 120,000 Chinese visitors by 2010.
What are they looking for? They want adventure without danger and crime. They want to experience new cultures. At this point in development they like to travel in groups. They want to experience new things and at the same time they want to not stray too far from the food they know and love. (Who amongst us can say no to Chinese Cuisine?)
The UK is using the love of Premiership football to help double the number of Chinese visitors to Britain to 200,000 over the next three years.
The UK has been granted approved destination status by the Chinese government, which means tour groups are now allowed to visit.
Tourists from Chinese mainland and Hong Kong are expected to increase in Fiji following approval of the passport exemption.
Hawaii faces significant obstacles to attracting more Chinese visitors. There are no direct flights from China and it does not appear to be any prospects in the near future. Hawaii’s status is branded as a leisure destination. Many of the 41 million outbound trips from China last year were for business, and about 90 percent of those were to other destinations which offer a more lucrative opportunity for business.
Chinese tourists are flocking to Australia like never before. About 300,000 made the journey last year. This figure is expected to triple within five years, and Australia’s multi-billion dollar travel industry is enjoying the fruits of their labor to attract these visitors. Australia has made a focused effort and invested money to attract more tourists from China and the ROI is showing. The number of visitors from China has risen by 20 percent.
In 2007, the Netherlands welcomed more than 21,000 guests from China, an increase of over 8,000 visitors in 2006 and they project 40,000 plus for 2008.
While many countries are reporting increasing numbers of Chinese visitors, the numbers visiting the United States for a number of years have declined. Roughly 100,000 mainland Chinese tourists visited the U.S. in 2005, 200,000 in 2004 and 250,000 in 2000. There are a number of reasons mostly political.
The United States needs to press the Chinese government for “approved destinations status” (ADS), a bilateral agreement that allows Chinese tourists to bypass consular formalities by allowing travel agents authorized by the China National Tourism Administration to handle visa applications. China has already established such agreements with over 100 countries, which as noted above are enjoying the benefits of Chinese visitor.
In 1986-7 Hawaii had fewer than 10,000 visitors from Korea to Hawaii annually. A few members of the private sector and HVB, Mr. Tom Sakata at the time, made a concentrated effort to market and sell the Hawaii Product in Seoul. With much effort and investment, the assistance from the Department of Commerce, Mr. William Yarmy, Mr. George Dolan and a number of others in the State Department we saw an increase to 157,000 visitors from Korea to Hawaii in 1997. There were barriers however we did not let that deter our goals and with the help of the DOC we were successful.
We also saw a large decrease in 97-98 due to the financial crash in Asia, a decrease we have not recovered as many destinations having been behind Hawaii in the beginning; once the financial issue stabilized, rushed in ahead while we slept at the wheel.
We are competing in a world market, we need to realize that to compete successfully we will need to develop our skills and commit our resources, energy, and desire to win to the game.
