Wealth Blog | USA favourite destination for big spending Chinese travellers
It’s official. The mainland Chinese have now overtaken the Americans and the Germans as the world’s biggest travel spenders. They spent US$102 billion (HK$791 billion) on international tourism in 2012, 40 per cent up on 2011, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation. This is down to the Chinese getting richer, the government allowing more of them to travel and more overseas countries grating them easier or visa-free access.
They are also now the world’s largest outbound tourism market, according to the China Tourism Academy overtaking Germany and the US, with Chinese citizens making 83 million overseas trips in 2012, which will rise to 200 million by 2020. The Chinese government is doing its bit, building 70 new airports by 2015 and expanding the existing 100 airports. The number of long haul flights to China increases all the time – you can now fly Chengdu to London direct with BA – and low cost carrier activity is ramping up.
Wish list versus reality
All this according to hotels.com’s Chinese International Travel Monitor 2013, which among other interesting details mentions that the average household annual income of the Chinese who travel is RMB109,922 (HK$138,390), compared to the average family income of RMB 49,920 (HK$62,848.5). But a quarter of travellers are much less wealthy, with annual incomes of less than RMB 70,000 (HK$88,129) per year. Whatever the purpose Chinese tend to go away for one to two weeks, 1.6 weeks for leisure, 1.7 weeks for business, and 1.8 weeks when visiting friends. Two-thirds now head off alone or with family, not in a tour group.
There’s a big difference between where they say they want to go and where they actually go. The wish list one to 10 is Australia, France, New Zealand, USA, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong Taiwan, UK and Canada.
In reality they mostly stick close to home. From one to 10 they actually visit: USA, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Italy, France and Australia. When they go abroad, 76 per cent say sightseeing is their priority, 65 per cent also rate dining very highly and surprisingly, only 51 per cent say shopping is a big draw. Only 5 per cent said they were interested in sport and gambling when travelling. Younger travellers, under 35, say they are interested in eating when overseas.
Chinese travellers book online