Episode 8 - China’s post-Covid tourism rebound

This podcast episode explores the surge in Chinese tourism post-Covid and how companies and brands must prepare for the changes in Chinese travellers' habits since the pandemic. The episode discusses the importance of thinking digitally and targeting Chinese tourists via online platforms and creative social media strategies.

Transcript

00:00:05 

Hey, I'm Jimmy Robinson, and you're listening to Insight China, a China marketing podcast brought to you by ping pong digital. 

00:00:17 

In each episode of Insight China, we'll give you our deep dive insights into a different area of the Chinese market, followed by a quick lowdown on the biggest Chinese marketing news stories that you'd need to know. 

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Catch new episodes on all major podcast platforms every month. 

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In today's episode, we're going to be exploring something that has been top of mind for companies in many different industries around the world for the last few months, Chinas post COVID tourism rebound COVID restrictions are a thing of the past. 

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Thankfully, finally and Chinese travellers have wasted no time getting back out into the world. 

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And really, who can blame them? It's been a long three years of lockdowns over there. During the Spring Festival holiday in January 2023, just a month or so after domestic COVID restrictions were lifted, 300,000,000 passenger trips were taken across China, a big increase. 

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Compared to 2022. 

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Short haul international tourism also saw a dramatic jump in numbers, with Japan and South Korea among the most popular destinations. 

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The recovery in long haul tourism will probably be a little slower, but we're expecting it to pick back up in the second and third quarters of the year before the pandemic, Chinese travellers contribute to $255 billion to the tourism industry. Almost 1/5 of global spending. 

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So destinations around the world will be happy. 

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To see them back. 

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But things have changed in the last three years, and companies and brands won't just be able to dust off their old strategies. 

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Keep listening to find out how to prepare for the return of Chinese tourists in 2023. 

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We can thank the. 

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Lifting of Chinas last remaining COVID control measures for the return of Chinese tourists, having removed the most dramatic restrictions and downgraded the virus from a category a infectious disease which is the highest level to a category B in December 2022. 

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On the 8th of January, China removed requirements for international arrivals to undergo quarantine. 

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With no COVID testing on arrival, the circuit breaker mechanism for international flights, which meant that flights were cancelled for several weeks if a certain number of positive cases were found on board, was also lifted. 

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As you can imagine, the market reaction to lifting of COVID restrictions was swift and positive. 

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The search volume for international flights on popular travel platform sea trip increased fivefold in the first. 

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Hour after the announcement about restrictions being removed had been made while Tongtong travelled saw a 271 per cent increase in hotel bookings in the same period, some tourism agencies have also been allowed to start group tours back up again. There are 20 destinations on the approved list so far. 

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Including ten in Asia, plus others, like the UEA in New Zealand. 

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The most. 

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Pillar destinations are the ones within a couple of hours of mainland China, such as Hong Kong and Macau, and of course, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. 

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Hong Kong in particular, saw in a massive increase in cross-border movement, marking a post pandemic record of 676,000 trips. 

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On the 6th of February. 

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Demand for Europe and the US hasn't picked up yet, but that could be because there aren't just that many flights available yet, according to visit Britain at the end of January, the number of seats on direct flights from China to the UK was still only eight per cent. 

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Of that of 2019. 

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So still a long way to go until we get back to the same high frequency of flights that we saw before the pandemic. 

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That being said, major carriers are starting to work China back into their schedules, and virgin and British Airways will be flying from Shanghai and Beijing from April. 

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In a nutshell, there's no question that Chinese tourists are ready and willing to engage in a bit of revenge travel, as people are calling it. 

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The question companies and brands actually need to be asking themselves is how have Chinese tourists changed since COVID? 

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Chinese tourists, in fact Chinese customers in general are savvier and more demanding than ever. 

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And they are increasingly looking for products and experiences that are not just high quality, but offer a feeling of uniqueness and value added service. 

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People certainly have money to spend, according to the People's Bank of China, household saving deposits grew by a record 17 point. 

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84 trillion renminbi to put that into a currency, you may be more familiar with, that's 2.76 trillion. 

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U.S. dollars in 2022, but they will want to get the most out of their first post pandemic trip. 

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As a result, the biggest change in China's tourism market is a move towards more independent travel. 

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That doesn't mean no more large group tours. It also means getting off the beaten path and discovering destinations that haven't traditionally been popular with Chinese tourists. 

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People feel empowered to do this thanks to online platforms like Malfunkshun and Chia, also known as Chongryon. These are where travellers can share detailed itineraries and experiences. 

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And of course, the type of travel that Chinese tourists have been experiencing domestically over the last few years. 

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Has opened up a whole new way of travelling for tourists. 

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When Chinese tourists arrive at their destination, their accommodation preferences are changing, too. Big chains are out, boutique hotels are in with younger travellers in particular looking for accommodation that has a strong sense of place and if its photogenic as well so much. 

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Another niche to take advantage of is the rise in popularity of nature based experiences and the big uptake of outdoor hobbies such as camping, hiking and even fishing data from SHANGSHU in 2021 showed a 587%. 

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Increase in posts including the keyword camping compared to 2020. 

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And many new camping and glamping sites sprang up all around China. This preference is likely to spill over into international travel, which could be a great opportunity for rural destinations. 

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Speaking of the great outdoors, environmental credentials are also important. 

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In one survey, 88% of Chinese travellers said that they cared about the environmental impact on the destinations they travelled to. 

00:08:07 

However, it won't be enough to just replace the plastic bottled water with glass or switch to an organic brand of soap. Hotels will have to take demonstrational. 

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Or action if they want their sustainability programmes to resonate with Chinese consumer. 

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Beyond the boutique hotels and unique accommodation experiences, Chinese tourists are changing other aspects of their itineraries as well. 

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Big designer outlet halls, for example, are being replaced with antiquing, farmers markets and local gift shops, a phenomenon that can also be partly attributed to the increasing price parity of luxury brands in China through duty free shopping zones in high. 

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Some travellers may even forgo shopping entirely, choosing to spend their money on experiences such as guided tours or cooking classes instead. 

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Similarly, Chinese tourists are changing their dining habits. The perception in the past and honestly, I'm not sure whether this was actually true or just a negative stereotype, was that Chinese tourists preferred safe options like hotel, dining, chain, restaurants or even Chinese restaurants. 

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Today, however, Chinese tourists are increasingly looking for authentic local dining experiences. 

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You only need to look at social media platforms like seongsu that we mentioned earlier, also known as red. 

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To see how. 

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Passionate Chinese people are about eating and talking about food. All these changes have been driven by the increasing use of social media, experience sharing platforms and online. 

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Travel agencies. 

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This means that, as is often the case when it comes to China, businesses need to think digitally to prepare for the return of Chinese tourists. 

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Firstly, it is important to have a managed presence on Chinese online agencies like Ctrip, Fliggy, Tunio. 

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And Tong Tong. 

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As more Chinese tourists choose to travel independently, they will be looking to book hotels and attractions in other countries on the same platforms they use for domestic travel. 

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Restaurants should make sure that they have listings on the emping, which is a bit like the Chinese version of Yelp. 

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Secondly, it's probably time to reassess your social media strategy. You knew that was. 

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Coming. I'm sure most people are familiar with WeChat and Weibo at this point in time, but other newer platforms may offer more opportunities for tourism businesses to promote themselves. 

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Over the past few years, Seongsu has emerged as one of the most popular platforms for sharing travel content with reams of high quality, user generated content, mostly photos posted every day. 

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Because the content posted is often really detailed and specific to shangshu, they have invested a lot in its tagging and search algorithms. 

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People in China use this platform as a search engine for going dedicated search platforms like Baidu to get tips about their destination before they travel. 

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And as a result, seongsu users expect high quality content, so businesses that use it should focus on image cultivation and softer brand building. Another digital strategy to consider is live streaming. As we've seen Chinese tourists like to be informed. 

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Before they travel, especially if they're organising their travel independent. 

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And live streams are considered to offer an authentic glimpse of their destination. Many businesses started using live stream to maintain their connexion with Chinese consumers during the pandemic, and this strategy is likely to continue over the next few years. For example, the British Museum. 

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Partnered with Alibaba's online travel platform fliggy for a live stream that attracted more than 370,000 Chinese viewers within the first minute. 

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These steps may require a bit of investment in Chinese speaking staff to manage platform listings or reply to reviews, but the pay off will be worth it for businesses that move first. 

00:13:02 

Now it's time for my roundup of the China news that you need to know this month. 

00:13:11 

Consumer brands are already scrambling to get a piece of China's post COVID consumption rebound. Chief among them is fried chicken chain Popeyes, which has partnered with the Chinese operator of Canadian coffee chain Tim horton's with the. 

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Aim of opening 1700 outlets in China over the next 10 years. Ambitious, we know, but Popeyes had a super successful launch in China in 2020. 

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With customers in Shanghai queuing for its signature chicken sandwiches for hours, but sadly it ended up closing all but two of its stores due to the impact of lockdowns. 

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Fried Chicken is a popular fast food in China, but KFC has kind of already cornered the chicken market with over 9000 restaurants in China, Popeyes will have to lean hard on branding and unique products if it's going to succeed. And hey, Popeyes, if you're listening. 

00:14:14 

Give us a call. 

00:14:15 

In the tech world, open AI's ChatGPT has been generating just as much buzz in China as it has everywhere else. 

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While ChatGPT isn't actually accessible in China, the country's savvy Internet users have naturally found ways around the restrictions to experiment with the platform. 

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Of course, Chinese Internet companies have been rushing to come up with their own versions and buy do expects to launch its own AI chatbot, Ernie Bot, in March. 

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And Speaking of ChatGPT, we're big proponents of integrating AI into what we do at ping pong. 

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Digital, for example, this month we were excited to launch Uni social score, our revolutionary new university social Media ranking system that combines AI machine learning with proprietary big data analysis to assess and rank universities, Chinese social media performance. 

00:15:18 

We are really proud of this tool and we hope that it will showcase the importance of an active Chinese social media presence and give universities the tools that they need to stay ahead of the curve. 

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Gov cheque it out at unisourcealcore.com Uniserial score is the first project from our new education Focus brand beyond Edu. 

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Beyond Edu, we'll expand on the services we already offer, opening up new and exciting ways for us to work with universities in 2023. 

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We'll be building on our existing expertise to offer services in new areas such as course design, digital product development, online and offline, student community management events and much more. 

00:16:05 

Look for us to launch more AI and big data enabled products in the coming months. I hope you've enjoyed this overview of the prospects for outbound Chinese tourism in 2023. It's clear that Chinese tourists are coming out of the pandemic with a healthy appetite for travel. 

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But they're also coming out of it with changing habits and armed with more information than ever. 

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Beyond the usual things businesses need to do to welcome Chinese visitors, such as hiring, Mandarin speaking staff or enabling Chinese payment platforms like WeChat Pay and Alipay, it's going to be important to take the initiative to target Chinese tourists via online platforms and try out. 

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Creative new social media strategies. 

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One thing I want to note before I finish this episode is that it's impossible to treat a section of society as big and general as Chinese tourists as a monolith. 

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And to be honest, it's true of any consumer group in China. While a lot of observations I've made. 

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Do apply to Chinese tourists in general. 

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There will be. 

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Huge differences in the way a Gen Z solo female traveller from Shanghai and a couple in their 60s from rural Guangdong will approach planning a trip. 

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For brands and businesses looking to take advantage of China's tourism rebound, the most important thing going forward would be to identify your target market and then research, research research to find out what makes them tick. 

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If you're a returning subscriber, we are glad to still have you with us. And if you're a new listener, we're looking forward to exploring more China insights with you. 

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If you like this episode, Please remember to subscribe, and if you have any feedback or comments, feel free to get in touch with us on Twitter or LinkedIn at ping pong. 

00:18:09 

I'll be back. 

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Next month to talk about the applications of AI in the context of digital marketing in China. 

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Whether I see it as a threat or an opportunity for companies like you and like ping pong digital and how we are going to be using AI in our products and services. 

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In the years to come. 

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Thanks for listening, xiexie dajia.