Chinese tourists

While at work, I came across some interesting facts about Chinese tourists.

1) Chinese outbound (international) travel is growing at 15% a year. There are now more tourists leaving from China than Japan.

2) Chinese trade-down on accommodations and transportation, but trade up in shopping. Trading-up and down are terms used to describe the behavior of buying really cheap things to be able to afford certain luxuries, for example, buying Target-brand socks to wear with $200 Nike sneakers. For example, the average American visitor to Hong Kong spends $700 on hotel stay, $200 on meals, and $300 on shopping. The typical Chinese visitor to Hong Kong spends $1,000 on shopping for luxury goods (Prada, Gucci, etc.), $120 on hotel stay and $140 on meals.

3) Most travel in with tour groups. This is because Chinese travelers typically can’t speak English, have never traveled before and don’t know what to expect, and want to be able to eat Chinese food.

4) The cost of round trip airfare from Shanghai to Beijing (~1300 RMB) is equivalent to one months’ salary for the average worker in either city.