During the Spring Festival holiday in the Year of the Dragon, many people choose to celebrate the festival in the form of tourism. Benefiting from the long Spring Festival holiday and favorable visa policies, the recovery momentum of outbound tourism is particularly strong.
From February 6, 2023, China will resume the operation of outbound group tours and "air ticket + hotel" business for Chinese citizens to relevant countries on a pilot basis by national travel agencies and ** tourism enterprises. In the year since the market reopened, how has outbound travel been doing? The reporter interviewed about this.
From the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day "Super ** Week" in 2023 to the "Longest Spring Festival Holiday" in 2024, people's enthusiasm for outbound travel continues to heat up, and outbound travel business continues to recover.
According to the "2024 Outbound Travel Demand Trend Outlook of Chinese Residents" released by Tongcheng Travel Network, with the rapid recovery of international flights and the optimization of visa policies for major destinations, residents' willingness to travel abroad has increased significantly, and more than 60% of respondents said that they have plans to travel abroad within a year. China Tourism Academy**, the recovery process of China's inbound and outbound tourism market will be further accelerated in 2024, and the annual number of inbound and outbound tourists and international tourism revenue will exceed 26.4 billion passengers, $107 billion.
The number of orders during the Spring Festival holiday increased significantly.
In January this year, China, Singapore and Thailand signed mutual visa exemption agreements one after another, and China's unilateral visa exemption and mutual visa exemption to foreign countries have been increasing. 26-year-old Qiao Zhen and her friends immediately searched for air tickets, accommodation, Universal Studios tickets and other relevant information for travel to Singapore. Qiao Zhen, who returned from a trip to Singapore, told reporters: "Fortunately, we started to arrange the trip early, and we had a very good time this time." ”
Zhao Jing, who is traveling in Thailand, said, "I plan to take my child to experience more famous parent-child hotels at home and abroad before she is 18 years old, but unfortunately I have not been able to leave the country in the past few years." On the fifth day of the first lunar month this year, I took my children to Thailand to spend a few more days in Phuket. You don't need a visa, so you can have fun and worry."
Benefiting from the Spring Festival holiday and favorable visa policies, outbound tourism has a strong recovery momentum. On February 17, the "2024 Spring Festival Holiday Travel Express" released by Fliggy Travel showed that outbound travel during the Spring Festival holiday in the Year of the Dragon hit a peak in the past four years, and the number of bookings increased by nearly 10 times year-on-year.
The reporter's investigation found that the outbound travel market in 2024 is generally optimistic about the industry. According to Ctrip data, Ctrip's outbound car orders during the Spring Festival increased by 53% compared with 2019, and ticket orders for overseas scenic spots increased by more than 130% compared with 2019. Among them, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and other visa-free countries have seen a high growth in travel orders, with a total increase of more than 30% compared with 2019. Among other short-haul destinations, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and South Korea all saw growth compared to 2019.
Ctrip Research Institute believes that with the Spring Festival as a starting point, inbound and outbound tourism will enter the fast lane of recovery, and the first chain of inbound and outbound tourism will also be repaired at an accelerated pace.
On the one hand, after the 2023 "May Day", Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day Week, tourists have gradually recovered their confidence in travel; On the other hand, with the gradual recovery of international routes and destination chains, travel conditions are more mature, and people's demand for travel has been further released.
A travel agency staff in Daxing District, Beijing, who is engaged in the work of outbound travel tail lists, told reporters that since 2023, their business volume has generally been better than in the past few years, but there is still a certain gap compared with 2019. She said that many countries and regions have launched a variety of discounts for Chinese tourists during the Spring Festival in 2024, and the travel agency's "New Malaysia-Thailand", Seoul, Sabah, Dubai and other visa-free travel routes launched by the travel agency during the Spring Festival this year are very popular.
Gao Guoping runs a small travel agency in Luoyang, Henan Province, which mainly does domestic tourism projects. Since May 2023, with the gradual recovery of outbound travel business, they have begun to cooperate with some large travel agencies in outbound travel business. Gao Guoping is satisfied with the business volume for more than half a year. He told reporters: "During the Spring Festival holiday, I wanted to take my family abroad to play, but because the business was too hot, I sold all the orders and didn't keep a copy for myself." ”
Yang Jinsong, director of the International Research Institute of the China Tourism Academy, said that after the resumption of outbound tourism, the outbound tourism market in Hong Kong, Macao, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and other surrounding regions has recovered rapidly. It is worth noting that tourists have also put forward higher requirements for the service experience and safety factor of outbound travel. Compared with the past, how to better grasp the individual needs of tourists has become a topic in front of destinations and business entities.
Multiple benefits continue to be released.
The recovery of outbound travel business has been good for a year, but compared with the domestic travel market, which is in a state of "blowout", the recovery speed of outbound travel is not fast. The reporter's investigation found that the difficulty of applying for a visa is one of the important factors affecting the rapid recovery of the market.
Since September 2023, a series of favorable policies on visas have been released frequently: Georgia, Angola, Tunisia, Sri Lanka and other countries and regions have successively announced the implementation of visa-free policies for China; At present, all 10 ASEAN countries have introduced different degrees of visa facilitation measures for Chinese citizens, such as visa-free, visa-on-arrival or electronic visa. On November 13, 2023 local time, the Council of the European Union approved new regulations related to the digitization of Schengen visas, creating a unified online application platform for Schengen visas......
Some tourists said on social platforms that in some European countries and regions, it was only necessary to queue for 1 to 2 months for reservations, but after the introduction of the new regulations, the time has been shortened to varying degrees, and some countries can even make reservations up to a week or two later.
In order to attract Chinese tourists to travel abroad, the tourism boards of many countries have also launched a variety of activities for the Chinese market. Tourism Fiji, Singapore Tourism Board, Switzerland Tourism, etc. have all held winter roadshows or brand promotion activities, aiming at the 2024 winter holiday, Spring Festival and other long holidays.
The rapid resumption of international flights is also an important factor in favour of outbound travel. According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, international passenger flights have recovered from less than 500 per week at the beginning of 2023 to more than 4,600 currently. China-Europe passenger traffic has recovered to more than 60% of pre-pandemic levels, and regular direct flights between China and the United States have increased to 63 flights per week. In 2024, the international passenger market will continue to recover at an accelerated pace, and it is expected to reach about 6,000 flights per week by the end of the year, which will recover to about 80% of the pre-epidemic level.
Specialty markets are popular.
Among the many overseas tourist destinations, Chinese tourists have always favored the countries of the Belt and Road Initiative due to their convenient transportation, abundant tourism resources and relatively low tourism costs. 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, and these countries and regions have also become a bright spot in the recovery of the outbound tourism market.
According to the "Big Data Report on Outbound Tourism in the First Half of 2023" released by the China Tourism Academy, among the top 20 destinations with the longest stay time in a single tourist destination, the "Belt and Road" countries account for 70%, and the average stay time of Chinese mainland (mainland) tourists in Thailand, Spain, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Fiji, Malaysia, Maldives, Cuba and other countries and regions is more than 3 days.
At the China Outbound Tourism Fair to be held in 2023, Egypt, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and other countries and regions will participate in the exhibition as leading organizations, warmly inviting Chinese tourists to enjoy the natural scenery and experience the cultural history.
Matt Thompson, project director of the Tarsus Group, said that by the end of June 2023, China had signed cultural and tourism cooperation agreements with 144 countries that jointly built the Belt and Road. There is no doubt that these countries will occupy an increasingly important position among China's outbound tourist destinations. The Belt and Road Initiative provides an opportunity for the development and restructuring of China's outbound tourism.
Xu Ning, general manager of the Beijing Aomei Africa Business Unit of Unet Tourism Group, told reporters that since the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released the list of countries to resume outbound group tourism in 2023, the company's "Belt and Road" outbound tourism product business has maintained a rapid growth trend.
Chen Hansheng, CEO of Characteristic Cultural Tourism Holding Group, said that the countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road" have rich tourism resources. Since the recovery of outbound travel, the company has launched a 150% increase in sales of related products compared to 2019.
Chen Hansheng believes that we can't just focus on improving the quality of hardware, which is easy to produce homogeneous competition, which will cause a war. We need to have both high-quality hardware and high-quality service.
Li Xinjian, Dean of the School of Tourism Science of Beijing Second University of Foreign Chinese, said: "The Belt and Road countries have always been important destinations for China's outbound tourism, and have accumulated rich experience in the past development. With the deepening of the Belt and Road Initiative, it is believed that people-to-people exchanges will continue to deepen and the number of tourists will continue to grow." ”
Li Xinjian believes that in order to better attract tourists to travel abroad, on the one hand, it is necessary to rebuild the industrial ecosystem that adapts to China's outbound tourism market as soon as possible, especially to pay attention to the new changes in demand after the new crown epidemic; On the other hand, it is necessary to continue to deepen marketing to the Chinese market and further optimize services for Chinese tourists.
Hu Wenyu, regional director of Ctrip's travel and vacation business department, believes that the biggest factor restricting the tourism development of the "Belt and Road" countries is the lack of professional service personnel. This is both a bottleneck and an opportunity, and it is necessary to make up for the shortcomings in a targeted manner.
Actively adjust and start again.
Before the new crown epidemic, China's outbound tourism has always occupied an important weight in the global international tourism market, and has been the world's largest source of outbound tourists for many years.
As Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Academy, said, the tourism economy has come out of a three-year period of sharp recession and deep depression, and has gone through a period of rapid recovery that lasted one year, and is about to usher in a new stage of prosperity and development. With the integrated development of culture and tourism in a deeper, wider range and higher level, as well as the wide application of new quality productivity such as artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and digitalization, the climax of a new round of entrepreneurship and innovation in the tourism industry has arrived.
How can outbound travel accurately grasp and meet the new trends and needs of consumption in a timely manner, and reshape the business model?
As more and more tourists join the outbound travel team, it is the key for business entities to continuously improve the quality of products and services, whether they are facing inexperienced outbound travel novices, "silver-haired people" with strong spending power, or senior outbound travel enthusiasts.
From the point of view of **, the current outbound travel products have risen compared with 2019. According to the "2024 Outbound Travel Demand Trend Outlook of Chinese Residents", air tickets, hotels and other tourism products are the primary factors influencing people's choice of outbound travel destinations.
From a technical point of view, Li Xinjian believes that in the past few years, the update and iteration of technology has changed the customer service model of outbound travel, such as changes in information dissemination channels and sales models; The trend of social ** e-commerce is becoming more and more apparent, and the competitive landscape of the outbound travel market will also change; The rapid development and application of artificial intelligence technology will also profoundly affect the customer service and product planning of outbound tourism, and outbound tourism will become more intelligent.
For outbound travel service agencies, with the continuous enrichment of tourists' travel experience, people's travel purpose has increasingly changed from "seeing the world" to "understanding the world".
In Li Xinjian's view, many tourists have shifted from relying on the manual service of travel agencies to using artificial intelligence technology to complete their trips. Whether the products provided by travel agencies can adapt to the changing needs of tourists, and whether the business model can adapt to technological innovation and leverage development, are all challenges ahead.
According to the 2024 Outlook on the Demand Trends of Chinese Outbound Travel, the diversification trend of residents' outbound travel consumption will become more prominent in 2024, and traditional group tours, high-end customized tours, and emerging outbound shopping tours and sojourns will further consolidate their respective target markets. With the integration of outbound sightseeing, tourism and vacation, concerts, sports events, medical and health care, more new ways to play "outbound travel +" will become more popular.
Guo Dongjie, chairman of Huacheng International Travel Service Group, said that under the influence of the macro environment at home and abroad, China's tourism industry has undergone structural changes, from the previous focus on the number and scale of functional tourism consumption, and gradually to focus on cost-effective and service quality of quality tourism and experiential tourism consumption transformation.
Guo Dongjie believes that in the future, group tour products will be divided into three parts of the world. In addition, IP-based tourism products are becoming a new trend, with high-tech and new products leading the growth, and the rapid development of group tours in overseas destinations, and young operators are taking advantage of the emerging travel trends to provide better services.
Yang Jinsong said, "For business entities, the environment and their own advantages are different, and the most important thing is to continue to invest in the field of excellence and create competitive advantages." On the one hand, it is necessary to do a good job in the travel guarantee, service guarantee, and tourism safety of tourists at home and abroad, and provide timely assistance; On the other hand, it is necessary to understand the market segment, maintain market acumen, continue to develop new products for pain points, and constantly meet the needs of tourists.
Jia Jianqiang, founder of Beijing Six-person International Travel Service Co., Ltd., said: "2024 will be a relatively stable and continuous recovery period for outbound travel. Outbound tourism practitioners should strengthen service upgrades, not only to develop products for consumption upgrades, such as in-depth tours, theme tours, etc.; It is also necessary to strengthen the sense of service, meet the needs of consumers for more personalized and quality, and let the tourism industry return to the essence of service. (Reporter Yang Xiufeng, Wei Jinjin).
*:Economy**.