ForwardKeys: “Chinese travellers seek friendliness and rural tourism for future travel”
Valencia, 12th March, 2021 -ForwardKeys air ticketing data for future issued tickets shows a rise in Rural and Red Tourism as China’s Communist Party get set to celebrate its 100th birthday. Surprisingly, the number of issued tickets to Zunyi, pushes the city into the top 15 destinations by booking volumes, with significant growth in advanced bookings. Zunyi is a national patriotic destination in the landlocked Guizhou province. Its popularity could be attributed to the strong promotion of “Rural tourism” and “Red Tourism” as the Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 100 birthday this year.
“Analysing the major destinations, we can see that Sanya and Chengdu continue to growing their popularity, as forward bookings are double that of the same period in 2019,” says Nancy Dai, China Market Expert at ForwardKeys.
Forward bookings to Harbin and Changchun are much advanced as well. These two Northern destinations suffered during Chinese New Year due to the rebound in Covid-19 cases, the pend-up demand is set to be released greatly during the Labour Day holiday.
This year the Labour Day holiday has an extra day, making it a 5-day holiday. “We can see through our data that there is considerable travel demand during the Labour Day holiday, with domestic bookings ahead by 32%,” adds Dai.
Domestic travel numbers continue to grow in China as its citizens choose staycations while international travel is halted.
Mengfan Wang, a Senior Researcher at Dragon Trail Interactive, recently created a consumer survey and plans to disclose the full findings on March 16 at 9 am GMT in a joint webinar with ForwardKeys.
“Optimism for travel is growing, though many remain on the cautious side. Based on the sentiments shared in the survey, we expect Chinese travellers to travel to low-risk areas, less crowded areas, and places with strict policies and efficiency in pandemic control. Tourism marketers should consider how to improve perceptions of safety, efficiency, and readiness for travellers in the future.”
The survey asked respondents to rank geographical areas by travel preference, as well as to assess the safety of 12 countries around the world. “As in past surveys, Europe still ranks second as the global region where Chinese want to travel, behind Asia. For destination safety, Japan and Singapore ranked the highest,” says Wang.
“Given the speed of recovery in China, travellers will start paying more attention to friendliness to Chinese travellers. 62% of survey respondents said that friendliness to Chinese travellers would make them willing to travel overseas, making this a more influential factor than a lifting of quarantine rules (56%) or being fully vaccinated (43%).”
You can learn more by attending the upcoming “What’s next for China?” webinar, register for the free webinar by visiting: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YrgHTVVZSi2tTxgDwOMajw