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China Tourism Tuesday Episode 12
14 Plays4 months ago
A teaser for our upcoming Rednote report on the brand power of Middle East destinations on China's highest-spending social platform. We rank each country tourism brand, and talk through what exactly China values most about each destination that makes up the region.
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Transcript
00:00:10
Speaker
tourism market.
Introduction from Hong Kong and Amsterdam
00:00:11
Speaker
My name is Charles Bataigne and I'm coming to you from Hong Kong. Good day, everybody. I'm Michael Jones, and I am speaking to you from Amsterdam.
New Report on China & Middle East Tourism
00:00:22
Speaker
So, Sho, you have come up, you've developed a new report ah based on ah some Xiaohongshu findings, ah Red Note. ah Tell us a little bit about it.
00:00:35
Speaker
Great. Thanks, Michael. So, yeah, basically for this report, I've kind of... collated all of the keywords around the Middle East region, um especially you know using our our sort of backend tourism analytics system of RedNote to try and see what China and China's RedNote users think about the Middle East in a tourism sense. So you know but when we do this, we specifically delineate it down into a bucket of tourism related keywords.
00:01:12
Speaker
So, I mean, it's what I've done is I've, I've taken all of the, all of the Middle Eastern countries, filtered them through this tourism keyword system that we have.
Top Middle Eastern Tourism Brands on RedNote
00:01:25
Speaker
And I've kind of, firstly, I've created a ranking to see, you know, which tourism brands in the Middle East have the strongest brand or the strongest presence on Xiao Hong Shu on Red Note. So,
00:01:40
Speaker
What I'll do firstly, if if you don't mind, is I'll just kind of jump in directly into this ranking that we did. Now just bear in mind that this is the the pure volume of which um a certain country and its tourism is searched for and viewed on Red Note.
00:02:00
Speaker
So if we can just jump in straight to the ranking, um Michael. Yeah, please. Then let's just do that. So no no prizes for guessing what the first, the top tourism brand on Red Note would be. It's obviously Egypt. Now I've got to get my numbers right here, but this is...
00:02:20
Speaker
it's It's nine zeros. So that's 1.5 billion um total views and interactions with the term of and of Egyptian tourism on Red Note.
00:02:34
Speaker
No surprises there, really. um I'm a little bit surprised, um to be honest. I mean, I know that... Egypt is doing extremely well in the Chinese outbound tourism market, but um I was actually expecting along the lines of the UAE or Turkey for that matter. But but yeah, let let let's continue. This is really interesting.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, so you're not you're not far wrong with Turkey. Turkey is is close behind Egypt, 1.2 billion total um total views and interactions with the Turkey tourism brand.
00:03:10
Speaker
Then following on from that is Qatar tourism. And the fourth one is really surprising. ah Syria tourism 411 million.
00:03:21
Speaker
ah Just to just do for the sake of completeness, Qatar tourism is 429, 428 million. tourism with 406 million. then following on in the fifth place ueourism with four hundred and six million Once you go down from there into sixth place, Jordan tourism is 53 million. tourism, 47 million.
00:03:42
Speaker
iraq tourism forty seven million Iran tourism, million. Oman tourism 33 million. Israel 16 mil, Saudis 3.8 mil, Yemen 1.5, Cyprus 1.5, Bahrain 1.4.
00:04:01
Speaker
ah Unfortunately, you know, for Kuwait, Palestine, and Lebanon, there wasn't much of a discussion around tourism specifically. I mean, for for for Palestine and Lebanon, that's understandable, of course.
00:04:15
Speaker
But, um okay, so that's what we can do is then maybe, Michael, is just jump straight into ah few findings that were interesting.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, if you don't mind, let's just play around with this a little bit quickly. Yeah, sure. This is actually quite mind-boggling to be looking um at these numbers. And for the people listening on ah the show,
00:04:41
Speaker
Later on this week, this full report will be published and then you'll be able to see the concrete numbers in front of you. um But so so again, okay, so Egypt tourism like really like pounding away there. Turkey, extremely strong.
00:04:56
Speaker
I mean, those are the ones that are in the billions.
Country-Specific Tourism Highlights
00:05:00
Speaker
um And then Qatar. Okay, so Qatar. ah I mean, without looking, before moving on to all the other insights ah along this, if one was just to take a generic view of these, um naturally Qatar has been promoting themselves a lot, a lot about the airport, a lot about their connectivity, and also ah smart, modern city.
00:05:26
Speaker
yeah Syria at number four is really, really interesting considering ah the civil war that they've had up until that's kind of coming to an end now. But nevertheless, it's um i and i can't imagine people are queuing up to go to Syria yet.
00:05:45
Speaker
um I would imagine in the near future when ah there's more security in place, i mean, I for one would love to go to Damascus and those kind of places.
00:05:56
Speaker
Right. And I'm sure that the Chinese are also clearly very interested in Syria. Right. It's it's exactly what you what you said there, Michael. Syria has such a deep and sort of strong, just conceptual brand, even if people aren't necessarily queuing up to go, like you said, um to to go to Syria because you of security concerns.
00:06:20
Speaker
Syria still holds a very strong charm and a very strong sort of brand in people's minds. So even if they're not going, you know it's it's the almost the polar opposite direction.
00:06:32
Speaker
of say, say Qatar, where they can go and they kind of are figuring it out as they arrive there. Syria is somewhere that they would like to go um for a very deep historical reason.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah. and And I suppose the the one that really, really stands out for me from being unexpectedly underwhelming is Saudi Arabia.
00:06:57
Speaker
i mean, Saudi Arabia is doing massive campaigns in China. and But it's clearly not coming through on red note mentions.
00:07:09
Speaker
And that that's quite interesting. So remember, this data is all time data for Red Note. So it its it is reflective of the last 10 or so years.
00:07:21
Speaker
So it's it's important to bear in mind, you know, if we were to maybe segment this down to more recent efforts of of Saudi, I think it would probably be quite different. um Saudi would probably be quite far ahead in terms of the new growth and in in new attractions and new experiences.
00:07:41
Speaker
um But yeah, compared to the the full historical data of the Middle East, Saudi would still be quite low. Yeah. Well, that's something we should, I think I'll make a note of looking at that a little bit deeper further on.
00:07:58
Speaker
Okay, cool. Well, let's now take a look at what are some of the highlights of of these trends on red note for these various countries. Okay, so basically what I'm, and I'm not going to go through every single country's keywords, but what I will do is I'll kind of look in the top 10 to 15, from number one to 15, what was really interesting that stood out to me, just something to look forward to when we when we do release the reports. So let's start with Bahrain, we can do it alphabetically.
00:08:30
Speaker
um What was quite interesting to me was that Bahrain, including other spots, you know, had the incredible cuisine brand. It had cuisine ranked quite highly on what people were talking about. I mean, if you look at the ranking of terms for Bahrain, it's tourism, airport transfer transfers, flights, visas, and then cuisine.
00:08:56
Speaker
And then of course also the the National Museum of Bahrain. So that that gives you a good idea of of you know where the interest lies. cyprus um Cyprus doesn't seem to have any major keywords that that pop out. There's only about 10, about 1.5 million total interactions with the Cyprus tourism ah brand or keyword.
00:09:22
Speaker
for For Egypt then, what was interesting to see was that the the special exhibition of ancient Egypt at the Shanghai Museum brought in about a total of 132 million views.
00:09:38
Speaker
That makes even more visible than the keyword, the pyramids of Egypt. Wow. That just shows you, um yeah, what what that exhibition in Shanghai, which was still until quite recently,
00:09:53
Speaker
um ongoing in Shanghai, how important that is for the for the Egyptian brand in China, which is obviously already very strong.
00:10:04
Speaker
I mean, close on the on the heels then of of the exhibition is the pyramids of Egypt, 131 million. Ancient Egypt, 125 million. Cleopatra, just the the keyword of Cleopatra, 51 million.
00:10:21
Speaker
and Then further down, there is mention of specific destinations, you know, the Red Sea. um You can look at Cairo ah also mentions, it it figures quite prominently.
00:10:34
Speaker
um National Museum, Alexandria. um Ramsey's the second. ah it's there's There's a lot, obviously, because of Egypt's extremely strong brand in China, historically.
00:10:50
Speaker
and And each of these mansions have got millions. Millions. Yeah, it's quite incredible. I mean, just for example, if you look at the, let's take an arbitrary example, ah the Matru Sea in Egypt has the same amount of views as the whole of Cyprus tourism, roughly speaking.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, it's it's it's interesting how that is. And then also for that matter, Egyptian cuisine, 9 million, almost 9 million heads. Yeah.
00:11:20
Speaker
Very interesting. And then one one thing that is a little bit controversial, but but it's still important to note, because I understand you were talking about this earlier, um there's there's quite a big one here about how not to, as a tourist, how not to get scammed.
00:11:41
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And that's got 50 million. Over 50 million. Yeah. So because Red Note is used as a search engine, um people will post how-to guides, travel guides on how to how to explore a destination.
00:11:59
Speaker
um The don't get scammed in Egypt tag is generally a tag used for guides on how to avoid the pitfalls of that many tourists face while they're visiting Egypt when they maybe aren't as experienced.
00:12:14
Speaker
So, I mean, it it just is is more practical than being a very hard brand image aspect. It's more just sharing of experiences and what to do, what not to do.
00:12:24
Speaker
and But if it's still something to be to to note take note of. You're right, Michael. Yeah. And to be fair, every country will have this. um So, yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. So, it's yeah, it's good just to see again from Red Note, from the pure consumer point of view, that people are literally using it for the pros and cons and how to make their or how to plan their trips better.
00:12:49
Speaker
um Yeah, that that is that is what Red Note is used for for a lot. Yeah.
00:12:56
Speaker
um Then next on the alphabet list, Iran. Iran, yeah. So Iran, a total of almost 36 million ah views on just Iran travel and tourism.
00:13:09
Speaker
Then the second beyond that, the the biggest ah keyword is iran Iranian nomadic life, which was interesting to me. You know, there there are nomadic peoples in Iran,
00:13:23
Speaker
But that's almost the the strongest brand. If you just take it from a red note point of view, the strongest brand that um the country can that the the the country can lean into she promote itself in China. Yeah. And the less and the list of topics, or although they obviously decrease in numbers eventually, um I mean, the list is fairly long.
00:13:48
Speaker
It is quite long. Lots of mentions of antiquities. Tehran, yeah. Iranian Holy Stone, Tabriz. Even FIT to Iran.
00:14:01
Speaker
That's always a wonderful sign. If you see FIT popping up, it's a very good sign for for for red note. It just shows people have the you know the confidence to be able to explore by themselves.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that's really, really interesting. Or even skiing in Iran, 15,000 hits. I mean, very interesting. Okay.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah. For Iraq, 47 million ah hits Iraqi cuisine featuring quite strongly, i suspect in no small part to a very, very famous um Iraqi Chinese influencer.
00:14:43
Speaker
he's a He's quite a prominent speaker about you know how life is in Iran. He speaks excellent Mandarin. and His identity is built very strongly around Iraq. around iran i mean aard drax excuse me um He is, I think we can add his handle in the in the show notes maybe, but his name is La Wang Zai Zhongbo.
00:15:07
Speaker
ah Very interesting blogger, extremely charismatic guy. And he will, his focus is Chinese food and on food and travel, basically.
Unique Tourism Strengths and Influences
00:15:18
Speaker
And, then you know, his Iraqi background features very strongly. So I would be i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of that 47 million views was him because if you think about it, he has about 600,000 followers on Red Note.
00:15:35
Speaker
I would venture, I guess, to say that maybe even half of all of that could be some in some way related to him of the the Iraq travel. um the Iraq travel brand, but that's just conjecture on my part.
00:15:50
Speaker
But it' it just shows you, I mean, for for people to be, you know, to put to have citizens of the country active on social media platforms in China is, it's important to have ambassadors.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Well, if that doesn't prove it, nothing will. Sure. And then a little bit surprising for Israel. Yeah. Yeah, ah Israel doesn't feature very highly, um fairly low on the list.
00:16:18
Speaker
It's got about, ah yeah almost 16.5 million views for for Israel travel. um Obviously, you know, geopolitical complications make it difficult to brand the country's tourism ah in China. However, what was interesting to see was how often ah cosmetic,
00:16:41
Speaker
ah medicine and beauty products popped up. So Israel Alma Laser, Israel EndyMed, Israel SOG Skin Products. These are...
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, Israel Al-Malaza by itself has 6.3 million ah views. Indymed 445,000 skin products, 52,000.
00:17:05
Speaker
I mean, beauty is an extremely lucrative industry in China, um as it would be anywhere else in the world. And Israel holds a fair share of that. So that also drives, I guess, a ah large part of the the tourism branding for China.
00:17:23
Speaker
Well, yeah, medical tourism. Very interesting. And now for a destination we know fairly well, Jordan. Yeah. So, what yeah I mean, yeah, I mean, tell us a little bit about the top ones and then i would love to jump into this one a little bit.
00:17:41
Speaker
Sure. Overall, almost 54 million ah views. Now, again, big disclaimer, you know, Jordan has very strong historical IP, but again, geopolitics make it difficult.
00:17:55
Speaker
um If you're just looking at it through a tourism lens, but nonetheless, let's, let's kind of look at, at what, what really inspires China and red note about Jordan, you know, crown princess of Jordan, um,
00:18:09
Speaker
That's 4.6 million views in and of itself. Then the very next one at 2 million views is the Dead Sea in Jordan. yeah Following that is Petra at a million views, Amman at half a million views, and um the Jordan Pass, which it it's sort of a compromise.
00:18:29
Speaker
a comprehensive entry to you all of Jordan's museums and um and, you know, sort of attraction, ticketed attraction locations at 130,000 And thirty thousand views and that that good thing to see, views for Jordan I so i mean Overall, it's a very good, i mean, ah very good sort of branding profile for the country.
00:18:55
Speaker
Wadi Rum is up there, the Dead Sea is up there, Self Drive, FIT, Valley of the Moon. No, overall it it looks good. Obviously just the the geopolitics that makes it complicated. Yeah.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah. So what I was quite interested to see here is that fairly high up is Jordan FIT travel and Jordan self-drive. Um, again, that's also really interesting. And, um, what I find probably the most interesting out of this is that out of the, all of their destinations, it seems to be that the dead sea,
00:19:26
Speaker
ah gets the most mentions, even more than Petra, ah which ah surprises me a little bit. um Yeah. it's um Yeah, but that's the great.
00:19:41
Speaker
um i'm Either way, because it is such an incredible experience, the Dead Sea on the Jordan side. um And their hotels and their facilities are just absolutely fantastic. and And maybe there's a bit of the kind of medical tourism, health tourism and wellness that goes in with that.
00:19:58
Speaker
um I can easily believe that. What's interesting is that that the Dead Sea is specifically associated with Jordan. If you look at our keywords for Israel, um we don't we do not find Dead Sea Israel. We find only Dead Sea Jordan, yeah which is ah' it's a branding win for for Jordan, let's be honest. I mean, that's it it could have gone either way.
00:20:23
Speaker
yeah And then also supported by like Dead Sea mud in Jordan. So yeah, absolutely. There's definitely a bit of the um the wellness coming into this. Okay, cool.
00:20:35
Speaker
And then Kuwait. So Kuwait, um, it's, it's not much of a, of a footprint on red note, you know Kuwait life, um, just capturing, you know, one's life in Kuwait, 1.4 million views.
00:20:50
Speaker
The rest is, is pretty much related it to transits flights, airways, uh, followed by Kuwait is Lebanon. Uh, Obviously, again, geopolitics make it difficult too to build a very strong tourism brand. But, you know, the city of Beirut has a fair has a fair share of attention, 200,000 views.
00:21:13
Speaker
ah Lebanon by the sea, Lebanese wines, a few thousand each. um Yeah, it's it's unfortunate, but not much of ah of a footprint on Red Note for Lebanon.
00:21:25
Speaker
Well, it's all shows there's still different interest in, I mean, this is interesting, in Lebanon by sea, Beirut itself, Lebanese wines. um So there's a natural curiosity ah from tourism perspective um that is probably just being more and more pent up for a little bit later.
00:21:44
Speaker
Surely, no, no, I think so, yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker
Looking at the next one, Oman, 33 million views for just the Oman tourism brand. But what was interesting to see was how much they have in terms of experiences um that that pop up.
00:22:01
Speaker
So you'll see, um you know, specific cities like Muscat, you know, specific hotels, um you know, the Chidi Muscat, Salalah Oman,
00:22:16
Speaker
And then also different kinds of experiences like dolphin watching. they gain that self drive tag coming up again. yeah There's a huge diversity of what they call it in China, they call it IP, um which I guess is kind of intellectual property, but what they mean is stuff that can be used to tell a story for a brand on on social media.
00:22:38
Speaker
So there's plenty of just stuff to hook a social media story onto in Oman, even though, in the grander scheme of things, the the total views for Oman aren't very high.
00:22:52
Speaker
But word of mouth in China for Oman is clearly positive. Yeah, yeah. And lots of mention of hotels here, mostly luxury hotels. So, yeah, it's it's definitely a bit of a premium destination.
00:23:08
Speaker
It is. It is. Yeah. Um, Palestine is, is in for the mention, you know, um there's two tags in there. Uh, not much really to discuss in the, in the tourism sense for, for Qatar tourism. They, they do rank quite highly, uh, 428.5 million views the Qatar tourism, uh,
00:23:29
Speaker
Now, views for the keta tourism a keyword now Clearly a lot of that is driven by the you know the air connectivity. People have a transit. um they will They will look for ways to enjoy the the city, you know, the the culture, what there is to offer.
00:23:51
Speaker
But as we saw with previously with South Africa, Michael, sports is just a major, it's just this incredible boost to your brand. We've got the Asian Cup popping up over here, the Qatar World Cup, the Qatar Grand Prix.
00:24:08
Speaker
um ah there's There's very few things that come close to a country like ah hugely massive sportsing it sporting event.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, i don't know what to say what else to say about this one. Totally. No, absolutely. I mean, exactly the three you mentioned, the Asia Cup, the World Cup and the Grand Prix. And like that is just like shining.
00:24:29
Speaker
So yeah, that's that's pretty incredible. So apparently that ah PR strategy works. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can. I think that that but the pretty ah one speaks for itself. So um yeah, let's look at Saudi Arabia.
00:24:48
Speaker
um sanno the Saudis, not doing as well, obviously because of the nature of the data, about 3 points, almost 3.9 million views for the Saudi Arabia tourism brand.
00:25:02
Speaker
I think again, if we were going to slice this down to the last few years, post pandemic, you know, we would see a different story we would see. And I think this is something, you know, this is something we want to do for a future study is just, you know, slicing this up a bit and seeing how,
00:25:20
Speaker
these brands have performed over the past year or so. yeah I suspect that Syria wouldn't be, wouldn't be as highly as prominent. Um, but, and I expect that Saudi would be relatively higher, but you know, if you look at what, what actually features in Saudi Arabia, you know, hotels, airlines, travel guides, basically how do I travel in Saudi Arabia?
00:25:47
Speaker
um Jeddah ranks highest as the cities. yeah Study in Saudi Arabia. There's some interesting interest in educational tourism.
00:26:00
Speaker
And then obviously a lot of volume and eyeballs being attracted to the events that they're doing in China. So the Saudi Arabia Bazaar in putting quite a lot of attention as well.
00:26:12
Speaker
I would add to that what is what is quite interesting about this breakdown that Saudi Arabia mentioned is that, again, the list is fairly long and quite varied.
00:26:25
Speaker
um So it would be, again, as we mentioned, interesting to look at the more recent catch-up of this because... I mean, here they're also talking about the Red Sea, a whole bunch of different destinations within Saudi Arabia, ah which, again, must show there's a lot of authentic interest in the various areas. It's not just the capital.
00:26:51
Speaker
it's It's a whole bunch of their product offering. So that' that's really, really, really interesting. Yeah. And I suspect that this is what we're seeing over here is the beginning of a, of a, you know, many a influencer fam trip, uh, to various experiences where slowly the seeds are being planted into people's minds in terms of, okay, there is a place called Al Ullah and there's a, there, there's certain things that you can do here.
00:27:23
Speaker
um that basically that these were sort of what they would call in China, um, jinghao which is basically seeding ideas within the, the red note ecosystem that there is this place that you can do something.
00:27:38
Speaker
And then, you know, hopefully over time, more organic content will follow, um, on the basis of these influencer fan trips. Yeah. Now the next one, Syria, uh, 411 million,
00:27:52
Speaker
million for the tourism brand, Syrian life at 6 million. Quite interestingly, Syria invitation letter. It seems to be a bit of a challenge for people to get invitation letters for the visa for Syria.
00:28:07
Speaker
um
00:28:09
Speaker
Exhibition of ancient like to and antiquities of Syria. I expect that was in... um in China and then the status quo in Syria at 1 million views.
00:28:21
Speaker
So people are constantly curious about what the status quo is in Syria, what's happening, um, what's life like over there and what would tourism be like if we could visit?
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Next topic.
Tourism Branding and Global Events
00:28:42
Speaker
Turkey, now Turkey, ah number two overall, at 1.2 billion views. Besides the Turkey tourism brand, the earthquake in Turkey um generated a lot of attention um at about 51 million views.
00:29:00
Speaker
But at the same time, you know, Turkey has a strong brand in terms of the Turkish hot air balloon, 42 million views. Romantic Turkey, 23 million views.
00:29:12
Speaker
uh, Cappadocia 5 million. So it's the, and again, as you mentioned before, a long list of many diverse and very well viewed experiences.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah. Like Anatalia 2 million. Yeah. I mean, there's a really, really, really long list here and a lot of activities and a lot of destinations.
00:29:35
Speaker
Um, And what is also, but what I do find interesting is that like the number one mentioned tourism experience, as you just mentioned, now the Turkish hot air balloon experience at 42 million. Now, firstly, that's a really big number.
00:29:51
Speaker
But secondly, that's also, quite frankly, what Turkey has been punting the most. I mean, most ads about ah tourism to Turkey include always a picture of the hot hot air ballooning.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So so they they are getting what they want. um Absolutely. And um if it's any, you know, consolation, you know, they are also, same as with Egypt, there is a there are guides on don't get scammed in Turkey.
00:30:23
Speaker
So it's not a thing that's solely focused on Egypt. This is a common tourism concern, um just to put that into perspective. Yeah, yeah, totally.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah, this is really, really interesting and very exhaustive for Turkey. Looking at the UAE now, 406 million for their tourism, driven very much by Emirates.
00:30:50
Speaker
You know, the I would say almost the top 10 terms is pretty much dominated by Emirates first class, Emirates A380, Emirates fleet business class flight attendants,
00:31:04
Speaker
Um, interestingly at 4 million views, Emirati life, lot of interest in, know, obviously the very luxurious life that one can have, um, living in the Emirates. Yeah.
00:31:15
Speaker
And, um, yeah, but, uh, again, looking at, at everything that they have to offer, there's a lot of views on, for example, the, the, uh, the more of the Emirates, Abu Dhabi, um, visa free policies, uh,
00:31:33
Speaker
various exhibitions, lot of mice content that's driving the brand, a lot of conferences. So that's, that also, that also drives the brand quite heavily. Yeah.
00:31:44
Speaker
Also mentions a Ras Halka Amai. Um, a lot of the, the, iconic, um, buildings and towers. Yeah. Also very, very, very long list, very long list.
00:31:58
Speaker
In contrast to that is the last one, which is Yemen, for obvious reasons, doesn't have a very strong tourism brand. 1.5 million views for the Yemen tourism tag.
00:32:09
Speaker
But, um, and to be honest, there are only three, terms that make it onto the tourism list, Yemen tourism, Yemeni invitation for a visa, presumably, and then Socotra at about ah but just and under 10,000 views for Socotra, just because it makes an incredible visual kind of picture, um I'm assuming, but obviously because of geopolitics, again, not really a viable place for tourists to visit.
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, so just to ah refresh everybody's memory, so the the leading in the ranking is Egypt tourism, Turkey tourism, Qatar tourism, Syria tourism, UAE tourism, Jordan tourism, Iraq tourism, Iran tourism, Amman tourism, Israel tourism, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Cyprus, Bahrain.
00:33:04
Speaker
um But again, just to remind everybody, this is from a purely historical perspective, so it includes all the mentions through the years on Red Note um and not specific to precisely now.
00:33:21
Speaker
I'll tell you, Michelle, you're going to be traveling to this Middle East soon, won't you? Yeah. So I will be in Dubai at the end of April from the 28th until the 28th of April until the 1st of May for ATM.
00:33:39
Speaker
And ah Arabian Travel Mart. And then, ah I mean, how how do you see, I mean, generally speaking, ah how do you see ah Chinese outbound travel to the Middle East um compared with other regions in the world right now?
00:33:56
Speaker
I think it offers, generally speaking, a ah better proposition to Chinese tourists who want to you know break out of the sort of East Asian bubble that that people will often have, that they have been sticking to in the post-COVID years.
00:34:12
Speaker
It's been increasingly a case that Chinese tourists, ah the more budget groups would want to travel within China, but more adventurous and more experienced.
00:34:23
Speaker
ah Higher budget groups would want to you you know slowly begin to expand their horizons again, do longer haul. um The Middle East, honestly, really hits that sweet spot because it's it's a whole new experience for Chinese tourists.
00:34:39
Speaker
They get to see something that's completely unknown, unexperienced, that's not something that they've been to many, many times, like, ah for example, a Thailand or you know a South Korea or Jeju.
00:34:51
Speaker
This is something completely new and adventurous and sort of quite cutting edge for them to do. The Middle East...
Chinese Tourists and Middle Eastern Experiences
00:35:00
Speaker
as a travel brand in China is incredibly strong.
00:35:04
Speaker
It's got historical ties that but for for just from the Chinese perspective, the historical Chinese perspective that go back, um you know, millennia from within their own culture.
00:35:17
Speaker
So they have a very deep own cultural understanding of the Middle East. and what it means to them that's that's sort of separate from, for example, their understanding of what might be ah North America or what might be a Europe.
00:35:34
Speaker
It's something that they are deeply, deeply interested in. So, you know no matter whether you know the the next sort of round of tariffs do actually become ah ah feature of the landscape of the world economic landscape, um but one thing I think that will remain certain is that interest in the Middle East will always be strong from China's side.
00:35:57
Speaker
um And those who have the means to travel, those who are wealthy, high net worth individuals who have the means to travel, will keep wanting to visit the Middle East. So I am long-term bullish um on on the Middle East for the China market.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this data of red notes, of all the trends on red notes, clearly and just absolutely clearly shows that number one, the Chinese outbound tourists are interested in the culture of the Middle East.
00:36:29
Speaker
It shows that they're absolutely interested in the history of the Middle East. ah shows that they're definitely interested in the cuisine of the Middle East. I mean, now you've like ticked like three of the most important boxes.
00:36:43
Speaker
um And they must I'm also guessing there must also be a hospitality part of it, that they're welcoming and feeling comfortable there, which really, if if you take those three or four segments, I mean, that's just a dream come true for ah Chinese outbound group tourists.
00:37:02
Speaker
And absolutely, we're seeing that in the market, like the the number of groups traveling to the Northeast is just growing and growing and growing. But at the same time also, i mean, from all those mentions that we saw of FIT and self-drive, there's also clearly an emerging market of the FIT traveler, the the younger ah travelers. And by younger, I don't necessarily mean ah Gen Z, but are absolutely millennials and the younger baby boomers that are going to be traveling around. So, yeah, I think the Middle East is in a great, great spot for Chinese outbound tourism.
00:37:43
Speaker
It's 100%. They're in a very enviable spot in that day they have thousands of years of culture. They have thousands of years of of stories to tell. um And they're just not as far away as as many other destinations are. Like, for example, ah Europe is is also a place that captivates the Chinese imagination. But it's just that extra little bit further away.
00:38:05
Speaker
extra bit more expensive. So yeah, basically i'm agreeing with you. I think that um the the Middle East has incredible potential. Just obviously the the major disclaimer being, you know, what are geopolitics going to do What will branding do?
00:38:22
Speaker
um how will people's ideas change about safety, especially in China, which is a very safety conscious market? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Well, great,
Report Release and Audience Engagement
00:38:35
Speaker
Charles. I think that's pretty interesting. um So this report will be will be out live of on Friday.
00:38:46
Speaker
Friday the 18th of April. Yeah. Friday the 18th of April. So, yeah, I suppose if anybody has any questions or concerns or anything that they'd like to suggest, ah please do let us know.
00:38:59
Speaker
And, yeah, Charles, thank you very much for your time. Great. Thanks, Michael. Michael, as you mentioned, um for our listeners, if you have any questions or comments about the topics discussed on today's show, you're more than welcome to send us an email at marketing at cconsulting.com.cn or you can drop us a message on LinkedIn.
00:39:20
Speaker
We're on LinkedIn as Create Consulting. So yeah, thanks very much. We'll see you next time.