The fifth annual Chinese International Travel Monitor released by Hotels.com™, has revealed ninety two percent of Chinese travelers plan to increase or maintain spending and one-third of them plan to spend more on travel in the coming year – despite the slowing economy.
The survey used Ipsos, a world leader in market research, which in May 2016 surveyed 3,000 Chinese travelers. To complement this data with opinions of hoteliers, Hotels.com carried out a global survey of 5,800 accommodation partners.
China continues to be the top global spender in terms of tourism expenditure, and the potential for growth with the market is enormous with only 5 percent of the nearly 1.4 billion Chinese citizens currently holding passports.
Some 120 million Chinese traveled overseas in 2015, up from 117 million in 2014, the year when the milestone of 100 million was first passed. This year’s report shows two-thirds of outbound Chinese travelers consider travel to be an essential part of life – and are prepared to spend nearly a quarter of their income on travel, providing operators with enormous growth opportunity.
Katherine Cole, Regional Director Australia and New Zealand for the Hotels.com brand encouraged hoteliers to avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach to attracting Chinese Travelers.
“Perceptions of Chinese travelers wanting only Chinese breakfasts and Mandarin translations are out dated. Our research shows that the industry needs to move decisively to develop new products and marketing strategies for the far more sophisticated Chinese traveler of today”.
To help the industry cope with these more independent and diverse travelers, Chinese International Travel Monitor 2016 reveals five travel personas that Chinese travelers fall in to.
Read rest of the article at eHotelier
