According to China Outbound Tourism Development Report 2020, it shows that January, May and July were the peak season for outbound tourism in 2019 while July. August and December were the main months in 2018.
The most important characteristics of Chinese tourists are given below:
- Chinese tourists abroad spend more than other tourists for shopping and visiting famous places
Shopping luxury items and souvenirs is an important part of Chinese people’s holiday abroad. It is expected to bring small local gifts for all relatives, friends and colleagues. Chinese people purchase behaviour is related to the concept of “not losing your face”.
“In the context of consumption, tourists think that the products and services they purchase are their self‐extension, so that they can use their value to make social comparisons and show their own face based on the results of the comparison... Some tourists will show off their identity, wealth and status by buying products that exceed those of other tourists. Such as staying in the presidential suites of luxury hotels, taking luxury cruise ships, or even spending on luxury and hedonistic tourism. Many tourists may have advanced consumption. For them, conspicuous consumption is a means of earning face for themselves.” (Zhuang 2021: 281-282)
Nowadays Chinese people don’t use cash or credit cards. They prefer to pay by mobile apps such as WeChat Wallet, PayPal, AliPay etc.
Chinese tourists have lessened the proportion of shopping abroad, the contents of shopping change to daily necessities which shows the consumption behaviour has been changed rationally. With the increasing demand for culture, museum tourism has become popular during this year's National Day holiday. Cultural and art centres such as the Prado Museum, Pingtung Marine Life Museum, Russia's Winter Palace and Van Gogh Museum were popular among Chinese tourists. Customized Tours were growing fast, innovative group Tours were revitalizing, and private-designed Tours were growing fast, accounting for nearly 10%. (TEOI 2018).
- Fine dining is highly valued
Chinese outbound tourists are ready to expend their plates. Some of them do go abroad just to try different cuisines. There is research showed that 34%of those surveys chose fine dining as the most important factor to decide where to travel (Mckinsy &Company 2018).
- Chinese tourists have a comparatively clear expectation for customer service
The quality of the customer services depends on the price you have paid for the excursion. The young generation prefers to pay more money in order to have a better travel experience.
- Chinese tourists expect better public services
The personal quality of Chinese tourists has improved distinctly. Their tourism experience is increasingly rich, and their tourism mode is more mature. Meanwhile, travel destinations are also facing a lot of challenges. Those popular countries need to focus more on public services and tourism facilitation. In addition to implement stronger promotions and new tourism productions, they should also provide more convince on visa process, flight, Chinese signage, payment services, infrastructure and security to improve tourist satisfaction (RRTE 2019)
- Small-group, personalized, themed and high-quality "new" package outbound tourism products (for more information: People’ daily 2019)
Small-group, personalized, themed and high-quality "new" package outbound tourism products are gaining more recognition among Chinese tourists.
According to Die Presse (Austria), it said that Chinese tourists were no longer interested in “Fast food” tourism type. New trend showed that they were escaping from modern cities to explore the beauty of the nature and typical local cuisine afar. To exhibit the albums and souvenirs were not important, but personal experiences were the new status symbol.
JNOCnews(Japan) reported that there was an obvious decrease of Chinese tourists’ purchase, on the contrary, experimental tourism has gained more popularity to observe the landscape both in natural and cultural aspects.
Lately, there was a statistic published by Austrian Ministry of Tourism that nearly one thirds of the Chinese tourists were self-guided travellers and the average age was under 40. Those who could travel within smaller groups or individualized packages would enjoy more flexibilities of their travel plans.
- Chinese language services
Nowadays Chinese people from young generation learn English at school but still their proficiency level is very low. In fact, they can understand some common English words and phrases but can’t communicate in English. Most of tourists over 40 years old can’t speak any foreign language.
“This is the main problem that we have to deal with. The important thing is how to make it all good for everyone with the easiest way. The best way is to explain everything in their language to make sure that it covers all details, there will be a picture with direction, especially for hygiene and peaceful issue.
If there is a clear communication, there will be no problem. Everything will be as we planned it to be. We did not use Google translate, we asked from the person who know Chinese or the other Chinese customer for translation. If there is a Chinese explanation, there will be no problem. If you do not tell them then they do not understand. They will do as they used to do at home. But if we tell the rule, they will follow. That is good.” (SCB 2022)
Chinese tourists will appreciate service in Chinese. They will be pleased if the hospitality stuff knows some basic Chinese words and phrases.