Report shatters China tourists' overseas shopping myth

World
Europe

From Japanese toilet lids to Swiss watches, as countless headlines worldwide go, Chinese tourists going abroad appear to have an insatiable appetite for shopping more so than sightseeing.

New research has suggested, however, that this entrenched image of holiday goers from the world’s second-largest economy, devastating as it must sound to salesmen worldwide, may not hold true anymore.

Shopping is no longer on the top of Chinese travelers’ agenda, according to a report by booking site Hotels.com and Ipsos. Only 33 percent of those polled showed interest in shopping in 2017, dropping from 68 percent last year.

Is it a stereotyping now?

“For the first time in history, shopping is no longer the prime reason for [Chinese] international travel,” said Abhiram Chowdhry, Asia-Pacific vice-president for Hotels.com. “The cliche of Chinese travelers only being shoppers is reducing. It seems like they want more experiential travel.”

Given that “(Chinese) travelers value leisure, experience and, exploring local culture and heritage”, it seems less surprising that most said they had spent a lion’s share of their budget on tasting local cuisine (55 percent) and sightseeing (53 percent), with the latter increasing 11 percent year on year.

If it is any comfort to local vendors, Chinese people did spend a higher proportion of what they earned.

Chinese travelers spent an average of 3,623 US dollars in the last 12 months – more than a quarter of their income, and up 24 percent compared to the previous year, the report said.

Spending by global travelers is a key driver for sales of especially luxury goods, explained accounting firm Deloitte in a report published in May.

It said, “Almost half of luxury purchases are made by consumers who are traveling in a foreign market – 31 percent of sales — or at the airport, where 16 percent of purchases are made.”

But geopolitical earthquakes including Brexit and the change of government in the US may have “deterred many potential Chinese buyers from traveling to key shopping destinations”, Deloitte added.

But tourists resolved to enjoy quality leisure time looked undeterred in the face of more tangibly threatening scenarios such as the shocking terrorist attacks seen across the Europe.

“Long haul trips to European countries have significantly increased in popularity”, the Hotel.com report said. “The number of people visiting [European] destinations in the past 12 months increased by 25 percent compared to the previous year.”