Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to China Tourism Tuesdays, a discussion of the latest Shanghai, China. It is currently 2 p .m. on Tuesday. Good day, everybody. My name is Michael Jones. I'm speaking from Amsterdam and welcome to our show of China Tourism Tuesday.
Speaker: So let's kick off a bit of things have been happening with Chinese New Year completed coming to an end now. Charl you recently did a report about the latest trends of Red Note, Chinese Xiaohongshu, about the what was trending over Chinese New Year. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker: Yeah, so very excited to be able to share a bit more about that. You know, we have our our red notes analytics system now in place at Create Consulting. So it's been, yeah, it's been really fun to to properly trawl through all of the top performing keywords of the past 30 days, you know, over the lead up and the actual progression of Chinese New Year.
Speaker: which is arguably you know the biggest, along with National Day, one of the big golden weeks for outbound tourism, because generally Chinese people don't get much time to travel, but over Chinese New Year, they definitely do go big.
Speaker: So it was very interesting for us to as as you know practitioners in in China outbound tourism marketing to see you know what are the keywords that grew the most over this golden um this golden week period. So we we we basically trawled through with our analytics platform, we trawled through the top 500 leading keywords and we stack ranked them in terms of their the amount that they've increased in terms of interaction in the past 30 days, along with you with a few other metrics. Now, just to give you an idea of the top five, Michael, we've got Hong Kong, Thailand at number one and two respectively, no surprises there. Hong Kong is where the whole country goes to to have their holidays, especially southern China.
Speaker: And Thailand, but it's visa free, it's a stone throw away from from China. it's but It's historically enjoyed very, very high Chinese tourism numbers. What really stood out for me was the number three one, which was Antarctica. Now, 2 .1 million, almost 2 .2 million posts increased in the past 30 days.
Speaker: And the interesting thing about that is that it did so of only 471 posts compared to Hong Kong and Thailand's 58 ,000 and 21 ,000 posts respectively. And that kind of gives me, that kind of highlights South America in in sort of flashing lights for me, because as far as I can see,
Speaker: Antarctica is a destination for those who can afford you know the very high cost of traveling there. Antarctica is often looped in with Argentina, obviously, with Chile, and then they even they do Peru, they'll do Colombia even. Brazil provided that visa troubles don't get in the way too much.
Speaker: Michael, what do you make of this massive surge in Antarctica but interest? um i must say that That really ah caught me unawares. i I certainly wouldn't have expected to have seen that. This is truly interesting. i mean i traditionally is a very high net worth luxury trip for the actual consumers who do it. So there must be a lot of interest in wishing or more like, kind of for I think for the vast majority of people, it would be more dreaming and real aspirational ah to go there.
Speaker: This would be a once -in -a -lifetime a trip for your average middle -class ah person because, I mean, obviously wealthy people could afford to do these really, really expensive cruises. ah what What breaks the mold ah traditionally with the Antarctica cruises that go from, that as you say, depart from the bottom tip of South America,
Speaker: is that, number one, it is prohibitively expensive. Number two, it takes a lot of time. Not only do people have to get to South America first, and then they're going to do their pre trips and post trips and stuff like that, but also the actual voyage itself. You're talking about a significant, significant amount of time from one to two weeks.
Speaker: So it breaks all the molds of what what people would have traditionally traditionally have thought of the Chinese outbound market. And yeah, so this is clearly a ah very aspirational thing. And I can imagine people getting excited about following it.
Speaker: So that's the traditional ah way of going there. I mean, you yourself and myself are originally from well nearby Cape Town. Let's just say Cape Town to keep it simple. And Cape Town's also got a ah company called White Desert where they do flights from Cape Town into Antarctica. And I see they even have really crazy trips where you can travel there and basically spend 24 hours in Antarctica and so then they've got they set up with a base camp and and their restaurants and it's just it's as luxurious as it's in the shortest amount of space of time that it's conceivable to do this so extremely extremely exciting but i again i can imagine amongst the really high net worth people that this this is probably
Speaker: the trip to do. So yeah, fascinating. I just find it fascinating that that it's clearly caught on with, well, generated so much excitement amongst most people that wouldn't be able to afford it, ah frankly speaking. I mean, it's truly, truly aspirational. But yeah, that that that's a really interesting one.
Speaker: Looking at the others, Paris number four, no surprises there. Paris has has had its fair share of Chinese tourists. ah ah Historically, Korea, Australia, Seoul, Hokkaido coming in at 5678, New Zealand, number nine. Yeah, no surprises there. I mean, North East Asia, ah what they would call Juhan.
Speaker: Japan, Korea, just because it's close. and Because it's yeah it's it's close by, you can fly then under two hours. it's It's always been a good destination for those who have the option to do so. ah But for the whole is Australia, New Zealand, sort of outside of the Asia sphere. But it's still very popular, especially with your ah more elite Xiaohongshu or red note users. What surprised me again, and it's it's also to do with ice and snow, is Tromsø in Norway. Again, coming in with not as impressive as Antarctica, but 824 ,000 interaction increases over this golden period of only 607 posts. And that again tells me it's a few small posters who are gaining a lot of attention
Speaker: by posting about this place where they can go see the Northern Lights in if Trump's or in Norway. And just following on its heels is is Europe travel. So I think there's a ah big takeaway we can take from this is that Europe is making a comeback, especially on, well, mainly on Xiaohongshu and their kind of users.
Speaker: who can include wealthy Chinese from you know first and second tier cities in China, mainly female, but also um overseas Chinese in Australia, in Europe and in the US, who have still got significant you know disposable income. And that's you know the enduring sort of allure of the Northern Lights and of strange cold places to kind of visit there.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, you can see also like you just talked about Trump so now coming in number 10, then Norway itself as a whole country, number 17, number 18 is Northern Europe, 19 Switzerland, I mean, Switzerland is all about, yeah, clearly snow also and mountains. So yeah, there's definitely something about yeah the whole winter travel and winter sports trend.
Speaker: that's really come on to display here, which is really fascinating to see. Sure, and I mean another another sort of trend -breaking destination is Alaska. 39 posts and almost 300 ,000 engagements, but I think what we could maybe take away from all this is if you look at the number 30, Africa, 10 posts that delivered 300 ,000 interactions. Now that was that was something that really jumped out to me.
Speaker: That's incredible. yeah i mean Again, like so so says i we're looking at the stats here with showing all the breakdown of the stats. For the listeners, I do advise that you go to our website and actually find those reports that you can actually look at the stats breakdown yourself. but yes like i mean You've got so many of these like thousands of posts that reach that gets such high interactions, but then exactly as you pointed out, Nachal, like just 10 posts for Africa getting 300 ,000 impressions, that that is absolutely incredible. And that says a lot for African destiny. nations about how they really can be pushing the envelope here. They do now live in an interesting place according to Red Note users in China. Also, just to make clear that this is a breakdown of oh this is ah what we've taken out of our for outbound tourism, but it also includes all the interests from domestic China.
Speaker: so this really gives a ah good glimpse into the way chinese consumers not only the outbound tourists or are thinking right now so so absolutely fascinating Just to add a bit of sorry michael just add a bit of context you mentioned 300 ,000 views. it's not It's actually interaction, so these would be comments, likes, and favorites. The views, it's even more. It's 750 ,000 views for all time.
Speaker: and that's that's It seems like that is of if 750 is of all time, then just the last 30 days, there's been quite a ah growth in and the interactions. so yeah That's something interesting. and Like you said, potential to ah to package Antarctica and Africa perhaps into one one crazy kind of experience.
Speaker: Yeah, and then also like, I mean, he also like number 21, Iceland, that just plays into it. But what I also find interesting is like, after Iceland, you get places like Jeju Island, which has always been super, super popular amongst the Chinese, but that that didn't even make the the top 20. Mount Fuji, number 24. Dubai, number 25. I mean, we're talking about like the mainstay, the real, real,
Speaker: Mainstay of Chinese outbound tourism in the past and currently to a lot to the biggest extent, but they they're not quite carrying the punch on red notes of a Chinese New Year interactions. So that's absolutely fascinating how how people are looking way out of the box right now and and finding it interesting and then engaging with that.
Speaker: What was interesting to me was to see how saudi the Antony Saudi destinations that have really featured in the in you know this list of keywords. and we To be clear, we we took the top 500 keywords off the entire app.
Speaker: And I mean, i've been I've been watching Saudi slowly dipping its toes into shaohongshu into red notes. And they're big they're starting out slowly. But yeah, I think there's definitely potential for them to grow on this app because that is there but that is by all indications who they want to reach.
Speaker: Yeah. And then also just to add in about the the continued potential for the Chinese outbound market. I mean, we've got Thailand here at number two, Hong Kong number one. um But I mean, Thailand, the official Thailand tourism authorities released the latest numbers for rivals for 2024 and was standing at 6 .7 million ah Chinese outbound tourists to Thailand.
Speaker: And that is only 60 % of the 2019 levels. They're going to be aiming for 9 million Chinese tourists for next year for sorry for this year. um So it just shows, again, things have been hampered by the slowing of the Chinese economy. But the potential for growth across the board is massive. And it remains a very, very interesting and lucrative market to be following.
Speaker: But it's it's interesting what you say now about the Thai market not recovering. And I had a sense this, I think we spoke about this back during COVID, is that the Chinese mass market is going to get quite used to traveling domestically. And that's going to push the developments of domestic destinations, such that you know international destinations might have to compete a bit better or ah diversify a bit better for the China market.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, 100%. And then moving on to the activities that that that really became prevalent on Red Note. So again, these these are just activities across the board ah for the Chinese consumers. And yet there were some really interesting ones there. and I mean, let's let's start off with the number one activity which ties into the destinations that we were talking about earlier.
Speaker: Yeah, so look ah the the top four the top three of those can be can essentially be ignored. you know Snow scenery, fireworks, those are fairly ubiquitous on Chinese New Year. But what is quite interesting were number three and number five, discover hidden hotels and discovering hidden homestays.
Speaker: It looks like there's much more of a swing towards more niche and boutique hotels, especially on with Xiaohuxu's user base. That's something that's quite interesting. Hiking, I would have never expected 10 years ago that the Chinese tourism market would be interested at all in walking anywhere, let alone hiking. That's a number six. That's that's ah quite a significant change.
Speaker: Well, the the hiking one, I do find it very interesting that it's here at number six, again, out of the total list. um So when when I was living in Beijing, we would often go to the Great Wall of China to a village.
Speaker: Where myself and a group of friends long -term rented houses in a village and we used to go up there every weekend it was only like an hour to two hours drive from Beijing and ah Basically, it was this village was in a valley was surrounded almost 360 was about 300 degrees surrounded by mountain and and then on top of the mountain was a great wall of China and And what I found amazing there was that we would see all these buses coming in from Beijing. And you would have, again, older people, absolutely pensioners. I think the youngest person would be in their 50s. The average age was probably more people in their 60s, even 70s. And they would be getting off the bus.
Speaker: And then they'd go hike up this mountain. not like Just to be clear, it's not a crazy difficult hike. There's pretty decent paths to get up top onto the Great Wall. um Sure, there are some dangerous more dangerous areas and things like that. um But the total hike for while for myself, um I could start at the base and be on top of the Great Wall. So it's including going up the mountain and and then on top of the wall. I could be up there in anything from 40 to 50 minutes. So it's not not like hours that you're talking about.
Speaker: But all these people would come fully geared up. You're talking about the best hiking boots. You're talking about helmets. You're talking about backpacks. And of course, you're talking about like the most insane and coolest and most expensive cameras that you've ever seen. um So these minibuses that had these group of tourists, just the gear alone in one of those minibuses must have been worth a fortune.
Speaker: But that already gave me a little bit of an inkling into into how this would go in the future. but but But you're absolutely right, I didn't expect also hiking to become a prevalent form of activity for Chinese outbound tourism.
Speaker: that is really changing a lot now. um I mean, we work ah a bit with certain countries that that have well -established and and super exciting hiking trails. Like you've got the Inca hiking trail in Peru, you've got the Jordan trail in Jordan.
Speaker: and and things like that. And there is actually a significant amount of ah Chinese tourists that are really engaging in those and enjoying them especially on in the Inca Trail.
Speaker: in in in Peru and you're starting to find actually some Chinese outbound tour operators now that are apps that are actually focusing on either marathon type running or half marathons, marathons or trail running and hiking as their main form of outbound tourism business.
Speaker: and that that's also pretty incredible and and again you do find these are not necessarily the youngsters doing it, these are more older people. Now for for possibly people listening to this they might think well that's a little bit difficult to believe But but i if you haven't seen that many of the older Chinese people be before or been to China itself before, just take my word for it that your average Chinese older person is way more fit physically and healthier than most of the Western counterparts. They're extremely, extremely active people. They love light adventure.
Speaker: So this is all kind of coming together into into something that's quite an exciting segment of this market. um I mean even one of our or one of our colleagues I just learned this morning, our manager for South China, she's going to be doing the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage trail hike um in Spain later this year.
Speaker: And yeah, so the list just continues and continues and ah this is a really exciting segment. So I'm really happy to see this year, number six for hiking. You know, the interesting thing to to note with this list, if you go, if you kind of go to the bottom of the list of the the activity in your notes. ah Parade, first time on a plane and shipwreck.
Speaker: So, you know, a small amount of notes, but a huge amount of interaction. ah If we look at the... Yeah, the shipwreck is really interesting. I mean, i mean that's that's clearly for, I'm assuming that's for scuba divers.
Speaker: Chinese consumers are getting more and more into scuba diving. Absolutely. like that I think that's one of the draw cards of Thailand and the Southeast Asia. um but But the actual activity of checking out ship breaks, that actually surprises me a heck of a lot more than the hiking. um I didn't expect to see that at all.
Speaker: parade I did a bit of research on what parades are and these are sort of everything from you know pride marches to two traditional kind of carnivals and fairs. Now obviously it makes sense in China ah to have a parade or any kind of sort of outdoor um large -scale movement. It requires a lot of regulation. It's not commonly seen at all, but in a place like Cape Town where you have the carpsichlopsia in New Orleans, where you have the Mardi Gras and Brazil, ah that I guess that shows that the the the the fascinating thing about these kinds of numbers is you can kind of see
Speaker: where the gaps in the market are and ah this I think is something that that um tourism destination decision makers should also take a bit of note of is that the the less common an experience is for your Chinese um average consumer or social media user, the more valuable it is to an influencer because influencers thrive of content differentiation. ah So if they can take a video of themselves having fun at a parade in Cape Town, then you're taking the box of Africa, you're taking the box of parade, you're taking the box of being something that's completely unknown, and that's how you're driving more engagement to a certain influencer. So I think that, just speaking as South African over here,
Speaker: my My kind of wish is that he knows South African tourism and and other South African tourism players would realize that they have a fair amount of leverage over over ah Chinese influences who want to fill that content gap. As you can see, 10 posts per 300 ,000 engagements. That tells you a thing or two about where people want to see what.
Speaker: and influencers would only be too happy to to visit destinations, to create content in destinations that they can fill that gap. and my My key takeaway from all of this is whether you're looking at Antarctica, whether you're looking at ah Northern Europe was to see the Northern Lights, whether you're talking about Africa,
Speaker: I mean, at the end of the day, many, a lot of this content is still being created by Chinese influences. And then it goes out and gets a heck of a lot of interaction and engagement.
Speaker: now Obviously also, um there's a limiting factor with that in that ah Chinese influences can't necessarily go to all the weird and wonderful and exciting and unique. I think that's the word that needs to be hit you of the world. And I think that does create a great opportunity for ah people in the tourism industry that are trying to attract Chinese outbound tourists.
Speaker: to really show up the uniqueness of their areas, the uniqueness of their nature, the uniqueness of their beauty, the uniqueness of their culture, like with the parades and things like that, to really to to be become visible on on red note by just showing what is incredible in your area.
Speaker: um and the culture that supports it, that clearly has got legs, that clearly has the potential to really drive Chinese interest and therefore ultimately tourism to your various wonderful areas. That's exactly right, Michael. and And one thing that I would almost add to that is that the but the cost of entry to Xiaohongshu is actually much, much lower than your barriers to entry on a so -called more mass or lower -end platform like DoYin or Quasho. So for you, for a destination to essentially share maybe the top Instagram post, just one post,
Speaker: essentially puts them on the map and that maybe gets them 30 -40 % of the benefits of you know being exposed on Chinese social media, just of a few posts. So the barriers to entry to Xiaohongshuo are quite ah quite low.
Speaker: because people want to see the authenticity and they want to see the authentic side. Obviously, you want to go the remaining 70%. You have to you know take all the inquiries from consumers who want to come and visit your destination. You'll have to deal with inquiries from two operators. That's why I say you can only cover the first third, but it costs you nothing just to show up on Xiao Hongshu. And because Xiao Hongshu users are globally savvy, they kind of get what's happening. Even if you post something in English, it's a post in your favor. Whereas if you were to go into Douyin, number one, it's not it's not accessible from overseas.
Speaker: And number two, ah users over there are much less curious and interested in the weird and wonderful um destinations that the world has to offer. And I was quite sure it's obviously even lesser. So so that's that's something that I want to say about RedNote. It's accessible. It's got an English interface. It's got autotranslate. You can use your own email address and set up your own account in a few minutes.
Speaker: and just browse around, maybe share and a video or two of your destination and that's a great way to kind of dip your toes into the into the water of China and of ah yeah the the the high -end demographic or the wealthy demographic that uses red notes.
Speaker: Well that's that's good advice and yeah I hope that's all of benefit to our listeners. I would highly recommend, ah I mean it might have sound us going a little bit all over the place so please feel free to check out this ah Red Note report that was made on for Chinese New Year. We will be making a report every month, um using digging deep into Red Note to see what are the monthly trends. um So I hope everybody gets some benefit from that.
Speaker: I think now we're coming to the end of this time for today's episode number three. um I personally would just like to say that I'm looking forward to being in Beijing next week, so I won't be speaking for Amsterdam or be speaking from Beijing. And in the episode afterwards, I think there's a very good chance that Charlotte now will be sitting together in the same room in Shanghai during episode number four.
Speaker: So if anybody wants to have a question or comments about what we've discussed, I'm also happy to, if anybody will also be in Beijing and Shanghai, happy to meet with you and chat. So yeah, I am hope everybody will have a good week.
Speaker: Great. Yeah. And if you're not in in China and you want to get in touch with us, you can feel free to send us an email at marketing at cconsulting dot .com dot .cn. Or you can contact us on our LinkedIn profile
