A 17% year-on-year decrease in tourism from China over the 2017 period is a tremendous loss in traveller receipts to South Africa. However, a turnaround is foreseen for the current year according to a marketing report recently released by China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI).
Outbound travel from China is predicted to be 154m trips globally in 2018 – a 6.3% increase, according to the COTRI report. With an average of 2.8% of these travellers making their way to Africa, this would see 4.31m tourists bringing air travel, accommodation, ground transport, retail and other travel spend to the continent.
The report reveals that Chinese tourists seek five things in a travel destination:
- Beauty and uniqueness (56%)
- Safety (47%)
- Ease of visa procedures (45%)
- Friendliness of locals to tourists (35%)
- Affordability (34%)
This is particularly relevant for SA and explains much about the reasons for the decrease in tourism from China to the country. The report makes specific mention of the concerns raised by tourists of current travel requirements for South Africa plaguing the inbound system such as safety, and group visa costs. It also highlighted easier visas in East Africa (but worse infrastructure), and visa restrictions plus the wait in moving through the entry-to-country procedure in SA and Botswana.
Due to these problems, tourists are ‘dropping’ countries like SA and Botswana from their itineraries in favour of other African destinations. Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania were named as three of the ‘hottest up-and-coming African destinations for the China market’.
The demographics of the average Chinese tourists are also changing. Where the post-70s tourists were made up of a family that prioritised family-friendly tourism and preferred self-drive travel; the post-80s tourist was the business traveller who prioritised cultural tourism and museums, and also chose self-drive travel. Both these sets travelled largely in groups. The post-90s tourist, however, is seeing a strong presence of millennials, who travel to South East Asia, prioritise natural scenery, and are FITs (Fully Independent Traveller), who plans his/her own itinerary, travel and route without the assistance of a group tour, pre-arranged schedule or other group setting. FIT travellers currently make up 40% of the outbound Chinese tourism market, and were responsible for nearly the entire increase in Chinese travellers overseas in 2017.
FITs and their particular preferences present an opportunity for countries like SA, where Chinese tourists indicated in the report that what they liked about South Africa was the well-preserved nature, landscape, ‘wild Africa’ experience, and the unique animals. The report further extrapolated on activities that Chinese tourists choose to experience while travelling, which include natural landmarks (45%), theme parks (41%), historic sites (38%), natural resorts (36%), urban landmarks (29%), shopping-themed scenic areas (25%) and cultural/art museums (23%).
As spend in the China market increases, high-nett-worth individuals are said to be leaning toward adventure travel, distant locations, novel locations, and – very promising for the African continent – a keenness to explore less-well-known African destinations. The trend for choosing destinations is driven by new direct flights and eased visa restrictions, so the emergence of more direct flights into Africa as well as the stronger focus on tackling visa regulations and exploration of e-visas, is a positive step toward capturing – and holding – the African continent’s portion of the potential Chinese travel market.
About topic presenters
Create Consulting is a marketing and trade relations company with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Dragon Trail Marketing is a travel technology and digital marketing agency with offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an.
