Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Tourists

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt FRGS FRAS – CEO COTRI August 2020

Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Tourists

Guest relationships with Chinese visitors in the 2020s


PROGRAMME FOR TODAY 10:00 h Jan O. LarsenIntroduction BUZZ.travel community10:10 h Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg ArltPresentation Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Travellers10:30 h Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt (Chair)Panel I Demand side: What do the post-virus travellers from China look for now, what has changed in their demands?Participants:Dr. Istvan Ujhelyi MEP (Introduction)Mr. Xu Jing, Former Director of Asia-Pacific UNWTOProf. Kaye Chon, Dean of School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityMr. Roger Qiu, Director International Markets: Greater China Outbound Value Retail (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.Mr. Maté Ritter, Business Development Manager at Budapest Airport11:15 h Q&A Panel I


PROGRAMME FOR TODAY 11:30 h: Ms. Rebekka Baer: Presentation New payment systems

11:45 h: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt (Chair)Panel II Supply side: How to prepare for the post-virus customers from China? How to use the new paradigm for successful business?Participants:David Cleary, Head Of Sales at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, IrelandNikolett Tóth, Product Development Marketing Manager at Budapest Airport, HungaryRebekka Sarah Baer, Head of Business Development at Planet, GermanyGazi Haxhia, Founder and President of Landways International, AlbaniaSamantha Marsland, Senior Commercial Analyst at Manchester Airports GroupAnders Ellemann Kristensen, General Manager Albatros 12:30 h Q&A Panel II


PROGRAMME FOR TODAY

12:45 hLucky draw for three copies of eBookWelcoming the New Chinese Outbound Tourists. Guest relationships with Chinese visitors in the 2020s

12:55 hJan O. Larsen: Final remarksInvitation BUZZ EXPO CHINA SUMMIT September 2020

13:00 h End of Seminar.

COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute | china-outbound.com |

中First visit to People’s Republic of China in 1978中1991-1999 owner of Inbound Tour Operator China -> Europe, offices in Beijing and Berlin中Since 2004 COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute Founder and CEO中2002 – 2020 Professor for International Tourism Management at West Coast University oAS

Germany (Heide)中Visiting professor at universities in China, United Kingdom and New Zealand中Fellow Royal Geographical Society (London)中Fellow Royal Asiatic Society (London)中Research Fellow Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (Tokyo)中Board member PATA Pacific Asia Travel Association (Bangkok)中Vice President Western Europe ITSA International Tourism Studies Association

(Beijing/Greenwich)中Fellow of International Association of China Tourism Studies

(Guangzhou)中Member of UNWTO Expert Panel (Madrid)中Member of Expert Committee of WTCF (Beijing)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt FRGS FRAS

Founder and CEO COTRI

http://www.china-outbound.com/


COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute is the world’s leading independent research institute for consulting, research, information, training, and quality assessment relating to the Chinese outbound tourism market.

COTRI is a privately organised, independent institute registered in Germany. In addition to the head office in Hamburg, Germany, COTRI has a Chinese office based in Beijing.

COTRI was established in 2004 by its founder and CEO Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt FRGS FRAS, a sinologist and expert in international tourism management with more than 40 years of practical and academic experience in Chinese tourism.

COTRI’s main goal is to enable private companies and public institutions all over the world to offer successfully high quality travel, tourism, and leisure services for Chinese visitors according to their specific expectations and demands.

To reach this goal, COTRI offers a broad range of customised services including consulting, market research, strategy development quantitative analysis and data, training and other services for a range of companies, organisations and destinations.

To support its customers in the Chinese market, COTRI uses its vast databases, extensive scientific, cultural, and industry knowledge and experience as well as the close contacts and partnerships with most leading public and private sector tourism organisations in China and all over the world.

Welcoming the new Chinese outbound travellers


CTT CHINA TOURISM TRAINING


COTRI and the globally top-ranked Hong Kong Polytechnic University,School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) have pooled theirexpertise to provide the comprehensive CTT China Tourism Trainingonline programme which offers five executive- level specialisationsfor a range of key industry branches. These consist of Hospitality,Destinations, Retail, Attractions and Transportation.

The trainings are flexible, self-pacedand contain numerous professionalBest Practice Examples and up-to-dateinformation, ensuring that learning ispractically-focused, interactive andengaging. Successful participants receivea university certificate from PolyU andCOTRI.

http://china-outbound.com/


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Situation August 2020:

The reasons why Chinese are travelling outbound have not changed. The Chinese are eager to come back onto the international market given the availability of visa and air connections and trust in the safety of travel.

Domestically, tourism in China has already started again in May 2020, with more than 100 million trips in the first week of May alone and another 80 million during the three-days holidays for the Dragon Boat Festival in June.

The number of local aircrafts in the Chinese sky and Hispeed trains on the tracks is back to pre-virus levels.

At the moment, China is the country in the world with the biggest tourism business activity, albeit only domestically. China has special arrangements with about ten countries which allow Chinese travellers to come back to China without the need for a quarantine period.



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Trends in Chinese outbound tourism before and after SARS CoV-2

• Further segmentation of Chinese outbound tourism source market • More customised and Self-organised tours• From Quantity to Quality • More information available • Technology and cashless payment • Rapid easing of visa requirements for Chinese

outbound tourists and more direct flight connections• The virus not going away as fast as hoped for – waiting

for a vaccine and a treatment





The basic trends of Chinese outbound tourism will continue, having been accelerated by the virus crisis, with the only exception that it will probably take some time before simplified visa regulations and fully developed air transport systems come back into force for Chinese travellers. For the next 12-18 months hygiene and sanitation will play an important role.

However, to cater for the new interest to emphasize family, nature, authenticity, small groups, slowing down, and the higher demand for trust and satisfaction, a new approach will be needed to avoid the previous problems of overtourism, seasonality and dissatisfied customers, staff and locals.

A new paradigm, reflected in new KPIs is needed for a sustainable development changing emphasis from marketing to recommendation by satisfied customers.

The need for a new paradigmTh. Kuhn: A paradigm is a universally recognizable scientific achievement that, for a time, provides model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.

COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute | china-outbound.com

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Really?

Source: UNWTO



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The need for a paradigm shift has been seen long before CoViD-19 crippled the global tourism industry in 2020. The very success of international tourism, with five times the number of trips in 2019 compared to the year 1980, has made a mockery of the idea of and has run a juggernaut over local nature, local culture, diversity and serendipity, impacting satisfaction levels of all stakeholders involved.

Grey rhino black swan

Pandemic not a Black Swan, but a Grey Rhino. Crisis Management Rule No. 1: Be prepared! International and national tourism organisations have failed to prepare for pandemic, in spite of Swine Flu, Ebola as warnings.



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Chinese outbound tourists have often been named as culprits for overtourism and a lack of interest in the destination on the one hand, and as “walking wallets” providing needed increases in arrivals and spending numbers on the other hand.

Chinese travellers have more often than not felt that abroad their needs and demands were not sufficiently taken care of, whereas many staff members of hotels and tourism service providers as well as many locals ranked Chinese tourists among the least desirable.

The first step towards a new paradigm for the 2020s is therefore:Welcoming Chinese tourists by trying harder to understand them and to accept them in their diversity and by supporting trust, embeddedness and satisfaction with adequately adapted products supported by digitalisation.



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Yes, until a cure and a vaccination for CoViD-19 is found, sanitation and hygiene will require more attention and transparent communication to regain the trust of Chinese guests.

However, the CoViD-19 virus and its effect of compelling everybody in the industry to rethink, tourism provides an opportunity to change the way Chinese outbound tourism – and maybe other tourism as well – is organised in a win-win-win-win way for guests, hosts, staff, companies, and the planet.

Such an approach fortunately also leads to more money left in the account of the company and the money chest of the destination: Positive WOM² (Word of Mouth and Word of Mouse) from KOCs (Key Opinion Customers) is almost free.Social Media marketing and KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) is too expensive for the result provided.



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“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.”

Most discussions about reaching the Chinese marketconcentrate on Social Media marketing.

A current list by Dragontrail shows the relationbetween the number of followers and the number of engagements for NTOs at Weibo, at a time whenChinese are very interested in news about outboundtravel destinations. Many of these posts are custom-made Chinese language videos or texts which cost a lot of money to produce.

Not one reaching 3,000 engagements, only fourreaching more than 1,000 engagements.



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Wasting money

The list by Dragontrail shows the relationbetween the number of followers and thenumber of engagements for DMOs on Weibo.

Melbourne has almost a million followers, but only 251 engagement with seven posts.

Only two organisation get more than 1,000 views.

The only reasonable response rate is achieved byFlanders, because they offer a lucky draw withcameras and coffee as prizes.



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Wasting money

For WeChat, the picture is not much better. Only thetop 10 of 84 surveyed DMO reach more than 1,100 average views per post.

Only one post reaches more than 6,000 and only onemore more than 4,000 views.

In comparison:



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Steps to success: Adding KPIs

Higher arrival numbers Higher number of overnights Higher level of spending per visitor per tripHigher margin Higher level of satisfied Chinese visitors, recommending the destination to their peers via WOM² Higher level of satisfied staff members, leading to increased productivity and friendlyness Higher level of non-alienation of locals, avoiding conflicts Higher level of preservation of nature and culture



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KPI Satisfaction: Guests, Staff, Locals, Company, Environment

KPI Embeddedness: Kinship Economy – everybody feels responsible

KPI Trust: Feeling welcome and safe as a stranger/Chinese

The new tourism paradigm triangle

Final goal: Personalisation

Adapt

Learn and understand

The physical, cultural, historical baseThe services that can be offered

Learn and understand

Use Big Data, ICT, AI



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The post-virus Chinese outbound travellers are more keen than before

• on family travel • on nature experience• on experiences instead of shopping • on travelling to not overcrowded places • to get in contact with locals • in the short-term also on hygiene and sanitation



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The post-virus Chinese outbound travellers want to TRUST the hosts,who need to show • their engagement for the market • their sympathy for the visitors • their interest in the visitors as individual persons

as well as for the culture they represent • in the short-term also their strong regime on

hygiene and sanitation

“Trust is the currency of the New Normal” – UNWTO Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili



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The post-virus Chinese outbound travellers want to feel EMBEDDED in the local destination, the local society, the hotel he is staying in by• Being treated as a welcomed guest• Finding offers and services according to his/her specific needs • Being encouraged to develop a personal relation to the surroundings • Being contacted also after the stay / offered a membership etc.



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The post-virus Chinese outbound travellers want SATISFACTION for which the hosts need to step back and think about their product and how it could be changed according to the interest of the Chinese visitors

- A beach: recreation an educational offer about ecosystems - A restaurant: eating a school of behaviour at western dinner tables- A hotel: bed a place to try out new technology- A theme park: play learn- Friendly: to everybody to the Chinese a little bit more- Perceiving as: ChineseMr. Wang or Mrs. Li, who

however still see themselves first of all as Chinese when abroad



www.china-outbound.com

More information on the new paradigm in the COTRI eBook: Wolfgang Georg Arlt:Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Travellers. Guest relationships with Chinese visitors in the 2020sISBN 978-3-944757-20-9, 220 pages, Price: 128,- €Delivered as pdf and ePUB

The book aims to move towards a new paradigm for Chinese outbound tourism in the 2020s which is helping global tourism and hospitality service providers to be more successful in the relation with Chinese visitors / guests / passengers / customers. The shift from the previous pre-CoViD-19 model is achieved by a change of mindset, digitalization and the new Key Performance Indexes, moving from arrival numbers and profit to a sustainable and profitable business build on Trust, Embeddedness and Satisfaction for visitors, staff, local population and the environment.

Order with subscription price until August 10th for 98,- €:https://payhip.com/b/AaMx

Contact COTRI [email protected] Tel. +49 40 8450 8531

mailto:[email protected]


Panel I Demand side: What do the post-virus travellers from China look for now, what has changed in their demands?

Participants:Dr. Istvan Ujhelyi MEP (Introduction)Mr. Xu Jing, Former Director of Asia-Pacific UNWTOProf. Kaye Chon, Dean of School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityMr. Roger Qiu, Director International Markets: Greater China Outbound Value Retail (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.Mr. Maté Ritter, Business Development Manager at Budapest Airport

Q&A


Ms. Rebekka Baer: Presentation New payment systems


Panel II Supply side: How to prepare for the post-virus customers from China? How to use the new paradigm for successful business?

Participants:David Cleary, Head Of Sales at EPIC The Irish Emigration MuseumNikolett Tóth, Product Development Marketing Manager at Budapest AirportRebekka Sarah Baer, Head of Business Development at PlanetGazi Haxhia, Founder and President of Landways InternationalSamantha Marsland, Senior Commercial Analyst at Manchester Airports GroupAnders Ellemann Kristensen, General Manager Albatros

Q&A


Lucky draw for three copies of eBook Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Tourists. Guest relationships with Chinese visitors in the 2020s


Jan O. Larsen: Final Remarks & Invitation BUZZ EXPO CHINA SUMMIT September 2020

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Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Tourists