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China Tourism Tuesday Episode 18
26 Plays3 months ago
In today's episode, we speak with Asia travel analyst Gary Bowerman about his research on the China outbound travel market, insights on China readiness among both emerging and historically leading destinations for the market, and how he sees the future of travel in APAC.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome to China Tourism Tuesday, podcast where we discuss how to market foreign destinations in the China outbound tourism markets. My name is Shalbert Heng and I'm coming to you from Shanghai, China.
00:00:15
Speaker
ah Good everybody. My name is Michael and I am speaking to you from Shanghai.
Guest Introduction: Gary Bowman
00:00:20
Speaker
And today we have a very special guest with us, Gary Bowman, an Asia travel markets analyst.
00:00:27
Speaker
Gary, Thank you for joining us on the show and welcome. I was wondering if you could perhaps just tell us a little bit more about what you do day to day in your work. Yeah, sure. Hi, Charles. Hi, Michael. It's ah it's great to be on your podcast. I enjoy your podcast. I listen to every episode. so It's a pleasure to be to be joining you. We've met in person, both of us. Michael and i met in World Travel Market at London last year and Charles and I ah caught up at Arabian Travel Market in Dubai a couple a couple of months ago in the yeah crisp spring day, as you said on a previous podcast.
Gary's Career Journey
00:00:56
Speaker
Um, my background, well, I grew up as in the travel industry. My mom was a travel agent, so i was kind of born into it. Um, but through my career, I studied economics and international relations.
00:01:07
Speaker
I've been a travel journalist, a business journalist. I worked for rough guides as a researcher in Latin America. I've worked for travel publishers. I was a columnist for CNN traveler.
00:01:19
Speaker
And then I moved to China in 2003, the end of 2003.
00:01:23
Speaker
um And I did a couple of jobs there. I worked for the American Chamber of Commerce for a while on its magazine. And then I was the editor of Shanghai Business Review for two years. And then I set up my own company, which took me back into the travel industry um called Check-in Asia.
00:01:37
Speaker
And we worked with a lot of international companies that were doing travel work in China, across China at that time. A lot of the focus in the early 2000s was on the inbound market, particularly the business travel market. So did that for a few years. um I was in China for the Olympics. I was there for the Shanghai Expo.
00:01:53
Speaker
And then I moved to Southeast Asia in 2010, largely because a lot of our clients were were Chinese at that time and they were investing more into this region, in the Southeast Asian region, looking at the outbound market.
00:02:06
Speaker
um And then In 2014, I wrote a book called The New Chinese Traveler, Business Opportunities from the Chinese Travel Revolution. And that kind of changed my career a little bit because It was one of the first books that kind of internationalized Chinese outbound travel and the domestic Chinese travel scene.
00:02:23
Speaker
um And so I got to do a lot of conferences around the world and I got a lot of consulting projects off the back of that. um And since then, a lot of the work that I do is is market analysis, um not just to the Chinese market, but Southeast Asian markets.
00:02:36
Speaker
I work for Focusrite. I'm a regional analyst for them in in China, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. so Wear a lot of different hats, guys, but um you know it it all comes down to
Insights from the Arabian Travel Market
00:02:46
Speaker
travel and lifestyle. And after the pandemic, you know everything has got busy again. For two years, it was very, very quiet.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, just like, ah Gary, I wish you had told me that all the first time we met. um That was actually really interesting. And so, I mean, you've clearly been around the block quite a bit. um And um we were talking on ah another podcast previously about ah the Arabian travel market and you were there.
00:03:14
Speaker
ah Can you give us a bit of ah yeah your insights from from that particular show and from a Chinese perspective? Yeah, I think... You know, I'm lucky over the last few years I've been invited to speak at a lot of the big shows, ITB Asia, um a the the Asian travel Arabian travel market and the world travel market in London. You see, and and also ITB in Berlin, you see the different focuses and the different kind of...
00:03:39
Speaker
perspectives of how those markets are changing, how the shows are changing. But you know I think as you you said, Charlene and Michael, in your previous podcast, you know the ATM, the Arabian travel market, is just so energetic, it's so vibrant, it's so much driven by investment investment and that positivity for the future.
00:03:56
Speaker
There's a lot of target setting for the future when it comes to the Chinese market in particular. A lot of investment in man-made tourism as well as authentic you know natural cultural tourism.
00:04:07
Speaker
So there's those two new elements that you're starting to see.
Middle East vs. Southeast Asia for Chinese Tourists
00:04:10
Speaker
I think and you also mentioned, that you know, there were a lot of Chinese buyers there. There was a huge Chinese presence in in ATM this year. I think one of the things that I take away living here, I'm based in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
00:04:21
Speaker
And one of the things that I find the most interesting about the the Middle Eastern market at the moment is just how it is emerging as a competitor destination or a competitor region to Southeast Asia.
00:04:32
Speaker
Now, if you go back over the last 10, 15 years, particularly during the 2015 to 2019 period, countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, so they kind of assumed that that they had the corner of the Chinese market. that you know it There were so many reasons why Chinese traveled here. We can go into those a little bit later. that it was you know They kind of owned the market. But you're now seeing um that that's not necessarily the case, that there's a lot of competition coming from the Middle Eastern and markets, even though it's further to travel, which means that flight prices are higher, it takes longer to get there, and you know there's a lot more planning that's needed.
00:05:09
Speaker
um Southeast Asia still has a very short-stay travel culture. And so I think it just shows how the Chinese outbound market is evolving, diversifying, fragmenting, whichever word you want to use.
00:05:20
Speaker
um But I think Southeast Asian destinations are starting to come to terms with the fact that they have a lot of competition from the Middle East. And I would say at the moment, they don't really know how to respond. Gary, that's a very interesting insight that i kind of want to double click on a bit.
00:05:35
Speaker
you, you um I understand so almost intuitively that but when you when you say that the Middle East is becoming, you know, competitors to Southeast Asia, but I hope you can maybe break it down for us, you know, what are the factors, what are the metrics almost that the Middle East is growing on such that it is becoming a competitor to Southeast Asia? And the reason why I ask this is because, i mean, 10 years ago when I kind of got my start in the China travel space,
00:06:02
Speaker
If you had told me that then, I would have not believed you easily. So can you can you sort of break down for us what how exactly you know the Middle East and I suppose Saudi is really catching up? In which specific specific areas are they really catching up?
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a good point. and I think we could probably write a book about this, I think, Charles, because it it actually shows you in many, many ways how the Chinese outbound market is simply diversifying, growing and maturing as well. And so there are a lot of different reasons as to why the Middle East has become more attractive.
00:06:33
Speaker
And you look at different segments of the Chinese market. You know, we have to we we all know that you have to get away from assuming that the Chinese travel market is one homogenous mass. It simply isn't.
00:06:44
Speaker
But in Southeast Asia, you know, it's a short-stay travel culture. It's very close. If you go back five years, the Chinese OTAs would always talk about the four to five-hour flight radius, which was which encapsulated about 70% or 80% of Chinese outbound travel, and that incorporated most of Southeast Asia.
00:07:01
Speaker
and But if you listen more recently, I was listening to Jane Sun speak from trip.com and she talks about a broadening radius now, particularly for discerning ah more experienced Chinese travelers that they want to go a bit further. And there's the curiosity factor. And I think the curiosity factor really plays into the appeal of the Middle Eastern destinations.
00:07:22
Speaker
Cultures are different, foods are different, landscapes are different, the experiences are totally different, they're new they're emerging, the investment is going into these destinations. And I think there are a number of reasons why that makes it appealing.
00:07:36
Speaker
And one of those is just simply the efforts that Saudi, in particular Dubai, are making to understand Chinese consumers, not just Chinese travelers, but Chinese consumers. You know, they're coming to China. They're doing these incredible partnership events in Shanghai or Beijing or Chengdu or wherever.
00:07:53
Speaker
And they're trying to understand the market a granular level, which I would say Southeast Asian destinations never did. Southeast Asian destinations just assumed pretty much before the pandemic that the Chinese would just come.
00:08:05
Speaker
And they did to some degree, but then the market changed and we can we can go back to that. But I think most of the the Middle Eastern destinations are coming at it from a very different perspective. They understand that they won't have a lot of the market that Southeast Asia does because cost and time and all those factors.
00:08:22
Speaker
But they do believe that the next generation of Chinese travelers who are more experientially curious, want to understand new cultures, want to go and see it for themselves. The Middle East is kind of, it's long haul, but it's mid haul. It's not as far as Europe.
00:08:36
Speaker
It's kind of similar to Australia, I guess. um So it has some of those advantages. Of course, destin the the distance filters the market. um But and I mean, you know, you were there, Charles. You saw how they are playing to to the Chinese markets and they're doing it quite effectively, I think.
00:08:52
Speaker
Absolutely. um So, Gary, you also just touched on a point now that I've been wondering, well, that I've been actually been hearing about more and more recently, and ah that is about being prepared for receiving Chinese tourists.
Preparing for Chinese Tourists
00:09:07
Speaker
So I'm assuming naturally, like in Southeast Asia, where the cultures are somewhat and similar to the Chinese culture, like, I mean, you've got Chinese minorities in many of the Southeast Asian countries and things like that.
00:09:20
Speaker
But now for countries that are a little bit further away, i mean, Middle East is a great example, or even further, where they don't really have much of an experience with ah dealing with a Chinese um culture and customers.
00:09:35
Speaker
um Some destinations seem to be investing um at least a bit into being prepared for receiving and treating Chinese tourists um better or well professionally, and some aren't. what What is your take on that? How important is that, do you think, to...
00:09:57
Speaker
be prepared to possibly give a better experience to Chinese tourists, just understanding them a little bit better? Or is it not really that important because Chinese people are looking for something different in any case than a new experience?
00:10:10
Speaker
ah What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's a good question. It's a multi-layered question. I think it's a multi-layered answer. I think, again, it comes back to the segmentation of the market. I think just to the first part of your question about Southeast Asia, yes, of course, big Chinese diasporas, a lot of historic migration from from southern China in particular throughout the region.
00:10:28
Speaker
So there's a lot of overlap in terms of culture, cuisine, history, Buddhism. you know ah ah There's a lot of elements that that that coalesce between the two two regions.
00:10:39
Speaker
But at the same time, i think that often led to Southeast destinations making too many assumptions and too many generalizations about the Chinese market, that they understood the market better than they did and that they didn't really get to grasp with how the Chinese market was fragmenting and and diversifying, particularly since COVID. I mean, we've really seen that Southeast Asian destinations got themselves into a terrible mess, really, trying to market to the Chinese market.
00:11:06
Speaker
different cities in China because they just haven't really understood how the market has changed during COVID. I think when you look at it from the Middle East perspective, again, it comes back to which segment are you attracting, you know which demographic from which city in China, from how experienced the travelers are, you know what is their experience of traveling in destinations like Southeast Asia or Australia or Europe.
00:11:27
Speaker
um So there's no single answer. There is no magic bullet. There's you know there's no silver bullet into how you approach the market. Some aspects of the of the Chinese market, the luxury market, the more experiential, younger couples market, you they don't want their hands held that much, actually. They want to be able to do the travel for themselves, create their own itineraries.
00:11:47
Speaker
They want it to be safe. They want it to be secure. They want to be welcomed. and they want to have the experiences they want to have, but they do you know they they are much more independent in their thinking, not just in their booking and travel patterns. But then you've got other parts of the market, the group market, and then you've got the older, the seniors market, who may want a little bit more help.
00:12:04
Speaker
There are issues around different visa requirements in in different countries as well. So there are different overlays, but I think generally that China readiness, has evolved as a concept. It's fragmented just as the Chinese market has. And I think every destination has its own experience with with the Chinese market. you know For example, if you're Cambodia or you're South Africa or you're Saudi Arabia or you're Peru or you're Italy or Australia, you know you will have very, very different experiences with the Chinese market, just as you will have with any other major market around the world in that sense.
00:12:37
Speaker
you know, what you offer as a country is how you attract the travelers to come and then you service and you you welcome tourists on that basis. So I think we're moving away from that, you know, that that base level of China readiness.
00:12:52
Speaker
And you've now got to offer the services that people want as personalized travelers, as customized travelers. You've got to understand that each traveler has their own wants and needs. And you have to be able to but fulfill those. and And that's challenging. That's kind of the next era, the next phase, I think, for all destinations around the world is how do you really move your services and your delivery on to the next phase with with customers who aren't just tech savvy. I mean, we know that the Chinese are mobile savvy, tech savvy, but they're going very AI savvy. They're going to really understand a granular level technologies that you know most of the travel industry won't understand.
00:13:29
Speaker
um And there's big challenges there. Yeah. Gary, I want to just keep going on that point. i was Interestingly, I was speaking to to you know Egypt yesterday ITB and just asking what they're doing in the China market. And the answer was effectively nothing.
00:13:48
Speaker
They don't really do anything in the China market because the people arrive by the busload. I was hoping you could maybe give us an idea of maybe another one or two destinations who actually seem keen and interested, like the Gulf like the gulf countries, the GCC countries, who are actually keen and are making an effort to really understand China as it is right now, um as a way for us to kind of see, okay, who's going to do really well ah in the future of of China outbound tourism marketing.
Effective Destination Engagement
00:14:20
Speaker
I think, well, when you look at a couple of markets, if you look at Saudi and Dubai, for example, they're at very, very different stages of welcoming Chinese tourists. And they're very, very ah different stages in terms of understanding different market segments.
00:14:33
Speaker
And they're very, very different destinations. You know, you can't really make comparison between the Saudi market and the Dubai market. They're very, very different countries. um and And so I think a lot of what they've been investing in, yes, they're doing, you know, on-ground promotion. Saudi, you know, had that big takeover of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing last year.
00:14:50
Speaker
You know, what actual impact that has is tangential. We won't ever really know. But I think what they have invested a lot of their money in is trying to understand the trends in the in Chinese consumer markets.
00:15:02
Speaker
um Dubai is slightly different because it has these certain attractions and it's been a popular destination maybe for even a decade now. um Aras al-Khaima, I think, has made a lot of efforts in in the in the Chinese market and will continue to do so as it invests more in a lot of its attractions and its um it's infrastructure, which is quite important.
00:15:23
Speaker
But in terms of, you know, your your point about Egypt is is very, very apt. What are they doing? Well, the Chinese are coming. You know, if you look back seven or eight years, you know, that that was Thailand's attitude. Well, they will just keep coming and then they stop coming and then there's panic. So you have to, it's it's almost like, guys, it's almost like that, you know, that age old marketing that goes back to the fifties and the sixties. You know, if you're,
00:15:43
Speaker
If you're Pepsi or you're Coca-Cola, do you stop in in investing in advertising because everybody knows your project you and it knows your product? Well, any you know smart marketer will say, well, no, of course you don't take that risk.
00:15:56
Speaker
You don't take that risk. You don't want to find out what might happen. So you've got to keep working at the market because particularly a market like China, the consumer trends, you know they come and go so fast that what you assume you knew last month, you don't know next month.
00:16:09
Speaker
um So i kind of take the point that at the moment for Egypt, things are going well, but what if they don't? And then how would you turn that around? you know that's That's the COVID lesson for everybody. um Sure. um I've actually got definitely two questions, and not exactly a follow up, but nevertheless, here we go. um The first one is um you were recently also involved with a panel discussion at ah a SCIFT conference.
00:16:35
Speaker
um what What insights came out of there?
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, that would that that conversation was more about how Southeast Asian markets are changing. So that was a little bit more about the the nature of change within the markets of Southeast Asia.
00:16:50
Speaker
yeah um And I would say one of the interesting things there that is relevant to China is if you go back maybe, I don't know, maybe 2016, 2017, when you know the China super app thing was starting, you know when super apps became made to our WeChat.
00:17:07
Speaker
um The difference in terms of app usage in the Chinese market and the and the usage of online lifestyle services was very, very different than it was in Southeast Asia. There was a huge gap.
00:17:21
Speaker
um And particularly in terms of payments, online payments, you know, you've had these two or three payment services for many, many years. We didn't really get e-wallets until just before the pandemic, but now they're everywhere.
00:17:32
Speaker
So I would say over the last seven or eight years, the gap in terms of app usage, online payment, yeah mobile payment usage has really, really
00:17:41
Speaker
my it's narrowed considerably. And that's very interesting because, know, one of the interesting things about the China market now is not just the outbound market, but it's the inbound market. And you're seeing a lot more
Apps and Travel Market Connections
00:17:52
Speaker
Southeast Asians traveling to to China because it's visa-free.
00:17:56
Speaker
um And unlike travelers from around the world, they understand WeChat Pay, Alipay. They understand apps to book their rides. to You know, okay, some of those will be in Chinese, but if you're from Malaysia or Singapore, you know, a lot of people...
00:18:11
Speaker
read and and speak Chinese anyway. um So I think that app usage connects the the the two destinations, the two regions much more. And so the other thing that that has really changed is that we've seen over the last, particularly since COVID, just this huge rush of Chinese companies coming into Southeast Asia, you know, whether that's BYD, whether that's Luckin Coffee, TikTok, of course, Alipay, you know, everywhere at the moment, you see across the consumer sphere, you see a lot of Chinese companies.
00:18:40
Speaker
um And that, you know, that, that, makes people more aware of of what's happening in the Chinese consumer sphere. BYD is doing very, very well in Southeast Asia at the moment. that That fuels onto people when they book their rides across the city on their app.
00:18:54
Speaker
you know they they're They're driving in BYD cars now. People are buying ah ah renting BYD cars to go on their own holidays or their own trips. So, you know, there's greater connectivity. And the other one, of course, is high speed rail. High speed rail is a very, very hot topic in Southeast Asia at the moment.
00:19:10
Speaker
There's going to be huge investment and development over the next decade and it is very, very likely that, you know, that will be funded and engineered by China. Wow. And um in terms of actual Chinese outbound tourism to ah Southeast Asia, ah you've touched on ah on it a bit, but can you give us a bit of an overview of where what is the status right
Trends Post-COVID in Southeast Asia
00:19:31
Speaker
now?
00:19:31
Speaker
Who are the winners? Who are the losers? And what you see maybe 12 to 24 months down the line? Yeah, 12 to 24 months down the line. One of the things COVID taught us but is is not to predict. LAUGHTER um if you go but and i mean The benchmark for this region obviously was 2019. So in 2019, the 10 countries of Southeast Asia attracted 144 million international visitors.
00:19:56
Speaker
And of that 144 million, 32.3 million of them came from China. So that was that that was a high point. And obviously the the real high point during that year was Thailand, which attracted 11 million Chinese visitors, which was...
00:20:10
Speaker
you know, at the time was considered astonishing. You know, six or seven years later, Japan potentially could beat that. But at the time, that seemed just like a watermark. um But then you look at obviously in three years, there were there were no Chinese tourists in the region.
00:20:23
Speaker
And then when the Chinese did come back in 2023, the return was very, very slow. And the the return was slow for a number of reasons. One was consumer sentiment, one was consumer confidence to travel into the region, but also the supply chains just weren't there. There weren't enough flights.
00:20:40
Speaker
the The OTAs didn't have their partnerships rebuilt again. So in 2023, for example, there are about 102 million travelers, international travelers into Southeast Asia, but only 10.6 million of those were from China. That's a huge drop from 31.3 million in 2019. And actually, if you go back and you look back over the statistics,
00:21:00
Speaker
there were actually more Chinese visitors to Southeast Asia in 2013 than there were in 2023. So this really shocked the system. This actually terrified all destinations in the region. Two things. One, that the recovery was not as quick as everybody had anticipated that it might be.
00:21:16
Speaker
And that actually, going forward, you know that recovery may never get back to where it was before. And if it does, it will take a long period of time. So I think what we've seen in 2024, we did see growth. I think there was probably about 20 million Chinese travelers into the region ah in 2024. But, you know, that's still a long way down from 32.3 million in 2019. So what we've seen, the the biggest drops have been in Thailand, and the biggest gains at the moment in Vietnam. Vietnam is doing quite well. and Malaysia is doing quite well. They're both up year on year at the moment and both probably a little bit ahead of where they were in 2019. But Thailand has just seen a precipitous drop.
00:21:50
Speaker
um Other countries in the region just haven't really recovered. There are issues with the Philippines, for example, when it comes to ah bilateral relations and and visa requirements. Singapore does okay. You know, Singapore just just moves along at its own pace.
00:22:05
Speaker
um But some of the other countries like Cambodia, Laos, they were very, very slow to recover. and You know, there's still that feeling in the region that Chinese are definitely coming back, but the market has changed. The charter groups aren't anywhere near the level they were before. So therefore, the flight volumes aren't quite as as high as they were, particularly into and into Thailand. I mean, Fliggy said last week that booking so far this year to Thailand on their platform, we're down 30 percent, three zero. So that's a third of the market almost, um you know, has gone from from from where it was before.
00:22:36
Speaker
So there are issues here and you know a lot of that is that the Chinese market is maturing and changing, demand patterns and flows will continue to change. um but Southeast Asia has to re realign itself to probably think less about volume tourism, more about the how it's going to service you know the different segments of the market from China.
00:22:58
Speaker
And now, um I just for a moment, I want to flip it to a little bit. What is your take on ah Southeast Asian outbound tourism? I mean, from the collection of the Southeast Asian countries, um for them actually going out abroad on holiday.
00:23:15
Speaker
And where do you see those kind of trains in the future? Where are they currently mostly traveling to now? And how do you think that might change? Any thoughts on that?
Vietnam and Southeast Asian Travel Dynamics
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a good question um because there are two pretty interesting kind of factors that but drive into that. One, of course, the most dynamic, the the hottest travel market in the region at the moment is Vietnam, both inbound, outbound.
00:23:41
Speaker
and domestic. It's a country with more than 100 million people and it's just having a really strong moment in travel. And you're seeing that it has one of the most aggressive airlines in the region, Vietjet, and that's starting to launch more flights um into China, into Australia and into destinations around the world. It's a low cost carrier that really is is very, very aggressive and ambitious.
00:24:03
Speaker
Some of the other low-cost carriers, you know, that this region is is built on low-cost carrier travel. i think it's about 54% of all flight seats in the region are low-cost carrier seats. So AirAsia and Lion, their growth is a lot slower at the moment.
00:24:18
Speaker
So I'd say the Vietnam market is one to watch. And, you know, the Vietnamese are are traveling into China. There was a lot of stories at the end of last year about Vietnamese getting special packages to go to Harbin for the the Snow and Ice Festival.
00:24:31
Speaker
um And I think what you're seeing from some of the markets here is that, you know, it's not just travel into Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu anymore. You know, people are going into different parts of the region.
00:24:42
Speaker
I think China offered visa free access to Shuang Banan, for example, six days for tour groups from Southeast Asia, trying to leverage the China Laos Railway, trying to get people to come in that way.
00:24:54
Speaker
um Other markets, outbound markets like Thailand and Malaysia are a bit constrained at the moment because we have inflation, we have higher cost of living, we have tax rises and we have the loosening of subsidies on things like fuel and and gasoline, which is really impacting the lower middle class and that's really impacting the frequency of travel and the destinations that they choose.
00:25:17
Speaker
That favors regional destinations, of course. um China has done quite well out of the group tour market from Malaysia, from Singapore and Thailand since it started to introduce visa-free access at the end of 2023, beginning of 2024. But you have to see how those patterns will will pan out going forward.
00:25:39
Speaker
A lot of the travel into China is group travel. I think you know the travel agency market is quite strong in these markets. um But generally, you know, where are popular destinations beyond the region? Well, Australia is is remains a very, very aspirational destination for all Asian travelers, I think. And Japan is the other one. You know, Japan is just the hot market for everybody, whether you're from China, whether you're from Southeast Asia.
00:26:01
Speaker
It's just having this incredible moment. Great. Thank you.
China's Tourism Innovation and Inbound Dynamics
00:26:07
Speaker
Gary, on on that note, I want to sort of, again, turning it a bit on its head, looking at inbound tourism to China from the rest of the world.
00:26:16
Speaker
Now, I'm going to put forward sort of a theory, and you can tell me where I'm getting it wrong, maybe, and that is that it seems to me that during the pandemic, and again, this is just a theory, but China had something of a...
00:26:29
Speaker
an experiential tourism innovation boom because they had this captive market for um three odd years or what was it, that experiences, services pretty much ah boomed in terms of innovation, in terms of regulation to make quality better for Chinese people traveling within China.
00:26:50
Speaker
And that's potentially reverberating around the inbound global ah travel industry to China. um I was wondering if you could maybe give me some feedback on that idea and maybe also compare in terms of number ah in terms of numbers the outbound from China and inbound to China markets.
00:27:10
Speaker
Well, certainly I agree with you. I think what over those three years that China was closed, you saw a number of things. You saw, certainly I agree with you, the increase in quality of product of travel product diversification of travel product you also saw the suppliers really really focusing on the chinese market so obviously all the airlines the eight the otas the hotels had to focus on the quality of their domestic market services which has really radicalized the way that they think actually and then now if you listen to the way trip.com talks or fliggy talks or
00:27:45
Speaker
or Tongchung talk, you know, they talk very, very differently than they did before the pandemic when they're in in Southeast Asia. They've learned a lot about the Chinese market at home, and they believe that a lot of that actually can carry over into Asian markets, not just for outbound Chinese travel, but for china but for Southeast Asian bookers going to to China, they see a lot greater overlap than they did before the pandemic. So I would agree with you there.
00:28:09
Speaker
I think what we've also seen is that destinations learn to market themselves much more in a much more savvy way, particularly using self-drive travel and the high-speed rail networks, you know how those were integrated into travel promotions, not just as ah as functional travel aspects, but how they were integrated into the experience. We saw a lot of that.
00:28:29
Speaker
And that really resonates with sort of emotionally driven Southeast Asian travelers. I would agree with that. In terms of the numbers, I i still think It's very, very difficult to compare inbound and outbound to to China for for one particular reason.
00:28:43
Speaker
The outbound numbers you tend to get from the destination. So you basically have to source each destination, find out how many Chinese travelers they they received in a year and then aggregate them together because you can't really rely on the outbound official um numbers. I'm sorry.
00:29:00
Speaker
And so you have that problem also with the inbound numbers. they' There's no scrutiny on on the inbound numbers. It's very, very hard to judge them. And i I just don't really have a view on what the actual numbers are because they just never seem to have any base in reality.
00:29:15
Speaker
So, but definitely numbers are rising. I don't think there's any doubt of about and about that, particularly from Asia Pacific. I mean, I was talking to a South Korean tour operator a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me, you guys may have seen this, weekends, you know, a lot of young affluent people from Seoul are flying into Shanghai to have their weekend partying in Shanghai because you know it's visa-free, they can fly.
00:29:35
Speaker
There are more flights between the two cities now. um you know a lot of those flights were actually put on to attract more Chinese travelers to go to Seoul. um But you obviously there are return flights that ah that are empty and so, you know, Seoulites are coming to to Shanghai.
00:29:50
Speaker
The same within these markets in Southeast Asia. China has become a competitive destination to to Southeast Asian destinations. you know from from From Southeast Asian travelers who may have gone to Thailand, who may have gone to Cambodia for their trips, you know they're going to China now. So China has entered the sphere. It's become much more of a rounded travel market, whereas before we tend to look at it primarily in domestic terms, because they're such a huge and diverse domestic market.
00:30:18
Speaker
And then, of course, in the outbound market, simply because the outbound market pre-pandemic was growing so fast. And of course, because the Chinese government, you know, you utilize that in their in their trade and diplomacy and their soft power.
00:30:31
Speaker
But now the inbound market is is is where Chinese soft power is. And I think that's a fascinating turnaround. don't think anybody really predicted it, but I think it's certainly real. Absolutely.
Gary's Favorite Destinations
00:30:42
Speaker
Gary, just one last question from our side before we wrap is, could you perhaps give us, just tell us what your favorite destinations are inside of China as well as internationally?
00:30:54
Speaker
Your personal favorite? This is a little trick question we like chat about. Okay, so my favorite city is Nanjing, definitely. I always enjoyed traveling to Nanjing. ah Favorite destination? Well, I was very, very lucky um during my time in China when I lived there to take the train from Shanghai to Lhasa, and that was just one of the most incredible trains I've ever taken. That was 52 hours, and you go across...
00:31:17
Speaker
I can't remember. I think it's like eight or nine provinces. ah you know You go through Central and then you go down through ju Gansu. Absolutely stunning. that was That was my favorite. I wouldn't really be able to pick any of the sceneries that that were my favorite.
00:31:30
Speaker
So yeah, those would be my my two favorite destinations ah in China for sure. And outside China? Outside China, well, I have a you know, Latin America, my heart is in Latin America. So Colombia for sure, Cuba and Bolivia.
00:31:48
Speaker
Fantastic. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Great places.
Closing and Listener Engagement
00:31:52
Speaker
If you have any questions or comments about the topics that we discussed on today's show, please feel free to reach out to us at marketing at cconsulting.com.cn or you can hit us up on LinkedIn at Create Consulting.
00:32:05
Speaker
We look forward to your feedback.