By Mark Tanner*
A lot can happen in a few weeks in China. Since our last update in mid-December, China has dropped all remnants of its Covid Zero policy, seeing the virus sweep across the country. By the dawn of the New Year, Covid had already peaked in its big cities. As an example of how quickly the virus has spread, Henan Province has seen 89% of its 100 million population infected. China’s countryside is yet to feel the worst of Covid. When migrant workers return home for the Chinese New Year later this month – many for the first time in three years – they are expected to bring another wave of infections. But it is highly likely that China will be through the worst of the virus before the second quarter of this year.
For a large portion of Chinese consumers, there is a sense of relief and certainty that their lives will soon be back to 'normal'. Consumers have a feeling that they have survived the “three-year pandemic” and are ready to look forward. This was reflected by the massive crowds across China who rejoiced on New Year’s Eve – not just the seeing in 2023, but celebrating the end of the three year Covid era. In his 2023 New Year Address, President Xi acknowledged the uphill battle that China is still fighting against Covid, but noted "The light of hope is right in front of us."
The biggest impact for many of us will be from China’s prompt opening to the world last Sunday. The Economist expects the reopening will be "the biggest economic event of 2023." On 26 December when Beijing announced that travellers will no longer have to quarantine and passport and visa issuance will resume, searches for overseas destinations shot up by 1,000% on Trip.com, hitting a three-year high. Booking for outbound flights from mainland China jumped 254% from a day earlier. Airlines still need to restore many of the routes, but the only way is up!
Destinations, operators and related travel businesses will be the most obvious beneficiaries of the reopening. For those businesses, the definition of being ‘China-ready’ will not be what it was in the heady days of pre-Covid. China Skinny recently worked with a destination who aimed to be optimised for Chinese travellers when they returned. Our consumer research and data analysis indicated very different preferences, behaviours and expectations from overseas travellers in 2019.
Among many of the findings was Chinese travellers’ move away from cheaper hotels. As much as it is about wanting to enjoy the finer things in life when abroad, it was also that budget lodgings are less likely to be clean and sanitized. This trend is also reflected domestically as China’s big hotel chains shutter their lower cost offerings. In relation to the higher-end needs from travellers, more are seeking personalised travel specific to their requirements.
One of the big swings from pre-Covid travel is the large share of travellers wanting to get out amongst nature. This echoes the camping trend which has exploded in China since 2020. Independent driving holidays were also high on the list, supported by ballooning numbers of driving licenses.
Those are just a few of the insights tourism businesses should consider when optimising their products and services for the coming wave of Chinese travellers.
*Mark Tanner is the CEO of China Skinny, a marketing consultancy in Shanghai. This article was first published here, and is re-posted with permission.
61 Comments
Well we don't have Machu Picchu here, so tourists just get to do stuff like explore our environment and go to sheep shearing shows, hot pools and whatnot.
Just because it's mundane to a local doesn't mean it's not enriching to foreigners. Otherwise they'd stop coming.
Does going to Hobbiton and a maori cultural show qualify as having a keen interest in our culture. Where do you draw the line
Is a rugby match in France a "good reason" tourism. They could stay home and watch it on the box
Also Some people have come here just as a tourist, then later at some point in the future they felt that they wanted to return or to make it permanent. They fell in love with the country, they did not know that at the time
Let people be people and adapt their plans
Is that not what it is?
"Feeding and clothing the poor "
What happens when they ate all the food and the clothes wear out. Give them some more, rinse and repeat. In that case I would rather be be poor. And lets not forget housing the poor.
Organisations like meat the need are full of well intentioned people who are applauded and rewarded with honours. The problem I have is that I was always taught, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day" ... you know the rest.
All people, even the poor people, feel better about themselves when they earned something
I agree. Mate who owns a high-end motel in QT fringe says his best cash cows pre-Covid were Indian honeymooners. Most couples are willing to shell out lavishly for accommodation, food and "local experiences" (read "rip-off") in their short trips.
Queenstown New Zealand - The Adventure Capital of the World (queenstownnz.co.nz) - sure. Good for our economy though!
Zach!....are you kidding!? You're mentioning the names of early European explorers as if they were gods!
I also have a romantic love of anthropology and would have loved to have experienced the world in all it's raw authenticity, but in the end the facts stand. These explorers you mention opened up the Americas and Africa to be exploited by European countries that carved up continents amongst themselves with complete disregard for existing natural boundaries.. They exposed native peoples to disease, systemic de-culturalization, long-lasting oppression and conflicts that to this day remain largely unresolved.
That aside, these gentlemen were the first "tourists" and the forebearers of the growth of all forms of tourism - because in the end we humans are a curious breed who like to see and experience all that we are capable of - provide the experience platform and we will use it.
And it's been like that for the last 300 years or so, only now it's not just the wealthy or landed gentry - today anyone can afford a travel experience.
But please if you're going to put across an argument make sure you know what you're saying!
EN
Great. What are you going to do about the other eight billion humans on the planet equally deserving of a "mind broadening experience"? Is flying 8 billion humans back and forth across the planet compatible with a survivable future, considering all the other crap we're dumping into our biosphere concurrently?
So the fundamental juxtaposition we are faced with is:
- Everything we are doing above basic subsistence is ultimately excessive, and adversely harming the planet (although ultimately just our species)
BUT
- If you were born into any previous timeline, you would give this timeline's version of yourself an uppercut for not making the most of all the very rare opportunities you have been afforded with, through sheer luck.
Over the last couple of years I deliberately ventured to those areas in NZ where the Chinese previously swarmed – finally an opportunity to enjoy what had sadly become plagued by a hideous infestation of mass tourism.
It would be a straight out lie if I was to say “Welcome back”.
The answer being that it gave me a chance to enjoy the experience.
My gripe isn’t about tourism in general – it’s about mass tourism and all it brings – the pros and cons of which have been thrashed about endlessly elsewhere.
I didn’t like what was happening with mass tourism in the years leading up to Covid and I don’t want it returning.
And in this regard I am certainly not alone.
This was essentially my gripe as well. I singled out Chinese tourism as there are a lot of tour operators who specialize in this market segment with tour buses, guides and hotels catering for their language and tastes. No real problem with it on a small scale however pre COVID tourism just seemed to be getting out of hand and spoiling things for locals and not offering a particularly authentic or meaningful experience for the visitors.
The problem is essentially capitalism/consumerism. If a buck can be made out of something then they'll basically terraform the place for tourists to make that buck. Same with things like our food, capitalism will happily cater to destroying people's health with highly processed foods that destroy human health.
I think that Queenstown sums up tourism in NZ for me.
When the hoards are descending it is a hideous place. One can understand the reaction of the locals in Greece and Barcelona telling tourist to F off and go home. You get close to it in Queenstown.
It is amusing to witness the plight of the Queenstown tourist industry trying to get staff and it illustrates just how little it contributes to Kiwi citizens. The whole proposition only works with minimum wage staff or worse so I cannot see any logic in indulging the sector with immigration or holiday worker visas. If the business cannot afford to pay Kiwis a decent wage sufficient to buy a home and support a family, then the extra people that we allow in are just a drain on our economy. We should not be subsidizing this, there are far too many of our own citizens with unmet needs that are our primary responsibility.
Queenstown is one of our cesspits of greed. They want house prices that are on a different planet. They want to pay minimal wages. They expect to be able to hire staff despite the fact that the staff will never find housing that they can afford. Well they totally deserve the situation that they are in. Can we expect to see worker hot bedding 8 hours per person per bed. 5 or 6 people per shipping container as per Singapore. I would not mind betting that we are starting to see stuff like this already. We will end up making Qatar look like a labor conditions paradise.
Well this is Queenstown now, but it is a pointer to where the whole country is heading.
Wikipedia: ""The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank when they had come of age.""
Isn't Chinese tourism similar - they are wallowing in a decadent civilisation? In those days the British inserted phrases in Latin to establish their intellectual status; now Kiwis use Te Reo. Watching Chinese dramas shows the same feature but they embed English words or phrases.
Yet there’s a big difference too.
The modern mass tourist model is typically:
- Fly in in big groups
- get bussed to destination, often in a bus owned by a foreign travel company interest
- stay at a hotel probably with foreign ownership
- eat at restaurants often owned by a foreign interest and staffed by foreign workers
- shop at duty free shops owned by a foreign interest with foreign workers
As you can see, little money goes to genuine NZ businesses, nor is there much in the way of genuine local employment.
Then, gorgeous locations get overrun by bus tours. Locals have less interest in visiting these spots. If locals did, they would stay at local motels , bed and breakfasts and Air B and B’s, dine at local cafes etc etc etc.
Chinese tourists to NZ are at upper middle class by Chinese standards. And the British tourists in Italy 200 years ago had their own cemetery Google: ""One of the finest places in the world to be buried, Rome's Protestant Cemetery is a peaceful oasis of green next door to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius. More properly known as the Cimitero Acattolico, or non-Catholic cemetery, this lovely spot houses the graves of Keats and Shelley.""
The main narrative overseas I heard about NZ tourism was that the government only wants rich travellers who spend a lot to come here. I guess Mr Nash's musings got picked up by mainstream media and have become part of our brand.
My American friends, who are lovely, thought that sounded arrogant, so went elsewhere.
Well done Labour. You fixed this too.
There is no money from mass tourism from PRC for local businesses apart from crowds. All the money goes back to PRC,eg. the airlines, tour buses and guides, lodgings all paid to PRC operator owners.
Better strategy to focus on lower volume self organised tours from NZ, to keep money here and have less demands on facilities and environment.
We lived without it, why fall into the hole again?
Time for a reset.
I know that in China many want to leave. After the last 3 years, many are now convinced that maybe the way of life isn't as "pure" as it was portrayed to be. Many of them were brainwashed at a young age, and now many are "woke".
Most likely with borders opening, many are organizing themselves to leave China. Of course not everyone is leaving, but those who can afford it or want a backup passport for their kids, etc. NZ will most likely be one of those places as they have money to pave the way for PR/citizenship. In addition, PR in NZ is truly permanent. That shields them from this "one passport" rule from China. In China, you can only have 1 passport. With NZ, you can just get PR and you can stay there permanently without a trace of a NZ passport. Also, the PR doesn't expire (unlike other places like Canada/USA - where you will lose it if you dont use it).
Most likely they will start transferring some of their wealth overseas via house purchases, land purchases, etc.
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