【2010.6.8 金融时报】Chinese travellers change the face of tourism

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By Jamil Anderlini in Kuta, Indonesia

Published: June 8 2010 14:57 | Last updated: June 8 2010 14:57

On the Indonesian resort island of Bali, the growing influx of Chinese tourists is not just changing the dynamics of the tourism market – it is also changing the faces of the Gods.

From the curbside stalls of Kuta beach to the upscale galleries in Ubud, most of the popular wooden and stone statues and figurines on sale are now carved with the face of Guanyin, the Chinese Buddhist goddess of mercy.

Just a few years ago on this predominantly Hindu island, such carvings almost all depicted Hindu gods such as elephant-faced Ganesh, or Vishnu riding a winged horse.

“Chinese tourists are the future for Bali and we have adapted many things to cater to their tastes,” says Adhi Wijaya, a tour guide in Bali. “The problem we have is they come on package tours with their own guides, stay in their own hotels and eat in their own restaurants.”

In spite of the global economic crisis, the number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad rose 5.2 per cent last year to 42.2m, up from less than 7m in 2001, while total spending rose 16 per cent from 2008 to about $42bn.

More than two-thirds of the Chinese travellers went to Hong Kong or Macao, two separately governed Chinese territories. But big-spending, camera-toting Chinese tour groups can now be seen all over the world. Their growing presence is drawing inevitable comparisons to the waves of Japanese tourists who burst on to the global travel scene in the 1980s.

Analysts say the almost overnight emergence of the Chinese tourist is the most significant thing to happen to the global tourism market for a generation. Before 2003, the only destinations outside the Asia-Pacific area to which the Chinese government allowed its citizens to travel for leisure were Turkey and Egypt.

Since then, Beijing has approved almost 100 countries as tourism destinations. The US was approved in June 2008 but only for citizens in a handful of China’s largest and most prosperous areas.

In France, Chinese tourists as a group last year surpassed all other nationalities as the biggest shoppers, according to a recent French government survey, even though the number of Chinese visiting fell by 17 per cent from 2008.

French travel operators say they are developing more shopping programmes for Chinese visitors. Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, the main tourist department stores in central Paris, have dedicated signs and services for Chinese shoppers.

In Italy, the government is trying to develop luxury holidays to attract wealthier Chinese while attempting to block a growing number of Chinese entering on tourist visas and disappearing into the black economy.

In the US, hotel companies such as Marriott International have introduced Chinese breakfasts at hotels in gateway cities and are recruiting Mandarin-speaking executives and staff.

“Chinese tourists have a huge appetite to travel abroad and their increasing wealth is very evident,” said J.W. Marriott Jr, Marriott’s chairman and chief executive, during a recent visit to Beijing. “We’re looking at how we can welcome Chinese tourists at our resorts all over the world.”

According to numerous surveys conducted in host countries, Chinese tourists’ favourite activity by far is shopping, and they overwhelmingly favour travelling as part of a tour group.

The majority of Chinese travellers are not very concerned about where they stay, preferring to save money on accommodation to spend more in the shops.

“This is partly a cultural thing – I’m absolutely expected to bring back gifts for family and friends when I go abroad – but it is also because things like Hermès bags are just not available or are much more expensive in China,” says Yvonne Du, a young professional who regularly goes on shopping trips to the US and Europe.

These travel priorities recently led luxury travel operator DmAfrica to close the Shanghai sales office in which it had sold up-market safaris in Africa. “We came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as a luxury outbound traveller from China,” says Paul Humphreys, chief executive. “They want to spend on things, they don’t want to spend on hotels.”

He said tour operators in China are fixated on commissions and frequently sell packages at a discount, expecting to make up the difference with commissions from retail outlets. That in turn has reinforced the focus on shopping.

“For now the system is based on commissions earned on the amount of shopping tourists do,” says Guy Rubin, managing partner at Imperial Tours in Beijing. “You have an odd situation where a great many outbound tour operators are breaking even or losing money until you factor in commissions for shopping. That means tours usually have to fit in sightseeing between visits to five shops a day.

“When the Japanese and Koreans started travelling they also went in groups and concentrated on shopping,” he said. “Eventually travellers will visit Paris to go on a cultural tour through the Louvre or do a class to learn how to make chocolate instead of just heading straight to the Louis Vuitton store to buy a bag.”

Additional reporting by Justine Lau in Hong Kong, Guy Dinmore in Rome, Scheherazade Daneshkhu in Paris and Tim Johnston in Bangkok