Will China’s outbound tourism exceed 200 million in 2020?

Since entering the 21st century, China's outbound tourism industry has continued to develop rapidly, and China has become the largest source of tourists in the Asia-Pacific region and the most active and fastest-growing tourism market in the world. Through the statistics and sorting of a large amount of data, this article makes a more in-depth analysis of the development status and characteristics of China's outbound tourism, and on this basis makes predictions about the development trend of China's outbound tourism market.

Analysis of the current situation of China’s outbound tourism market

1. Strong demand in the outbound tourism market

Since entering the 21st century, with the rapid development of China’s national economy and the improvement of people’s lives With the continuous improvement of tourism standards, China's outbound tourism market has shown strong demand. According to statistics from the National Tourism Administration, in 2001, the total number of Chinese citizens traveling abroad was 12.1231 million, of which 6.9454 million were traveling abroad for personal reasons. In 2004, the total number of Chinese citizens going abroad rose to 28.85 million, of which 22.98 million went abroad for personal reasons, an increase of 137.98% and 230.87% respectively over 2001. In 2001, the number of people leaving the country for personal reasons accounted for 57.29% of the total number of people leaving the country. In 2004, this proportion rose to 79.65%, an increase of 22.36 percentage points.

It can be seen that at present and in the future, China's outbound tourism market has huge consumer demand and development potential.

The development momentum of outbound tourism is rapid. In recent years, China's outbound tourism market has developed rapidly. From 2001 to 2004, the average annual growth rates of the three major markets of domestic tourism, outbound tourism and inbound tourism were 10.8%, 29.3% and 7.3% respectively. Among them, affected by SARS in 2003, both the domestic tourism market and the inbound tourism market experienced negative growth. Only the outbound tourism market still maintained a growth rate of 21.80%. It can be seen that the growth rate of the outbound tourism market far exceeds that of domestic tourism and inbound tourism, becoming the tourism market with the strongest growth momentum.

my country’s outbound tourism customers mainly come from economically developed large cities and eastern regions. In 2004, the number of outbound tourists organized by travel agencies from Beijing, Guangdong Province, Shanghai, Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province accounted for 72.16% of the total number of outbound tourists organized by travel agencies across the country that year. Among them, Beijing is the largest source of outbound tourists in my country. The number of outbound tourists organized by travel agencies accounted for 29.93% of the total number of outbound tourists in the country that year, followed by Guangdong Province, accounting for 21.9%. The number of outbound tourists organized by travel agencies in Shanghai, Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province, ranking third, fourth and fifth, accounted for 11.70%, 4.31% and 4.25% respectively.

In addition, with the acceleration of the development process in western my country, people's living standards have been greatly improved, which has stimulated the motivation of local residents to travel abroad, resulting in a relatively large number of outbound tourists in western my country. Fast growth.

2. The Asia-Pacific region is the main tourist destination

Based on the first destination of outbound travel, the number of Chinese citizens traveling to Asia in the first half of 2005 was 13.104 million. The number of people traveling to the Americas was 362,700, the number of people traveling to Europe was 820,400, and the number of people traveling to Oceania was 215,500. Judging from the number of people received, Asia is obviously the main destination for Chinese citizens traveling abroad, accounting for 90.4% of all outbound travel.

In addition, among the top 10 destination countries and regions for Chinese citizens traveling abroad, 8 are Asian countries and regions. These situations all reflect that Chinese citizens mainly travel abroad to neighboring countries and regions.

From the perspective of growth rate, Oceania and America, which are far away from our country, have become the regions with the fastest growth in the number of Chinese citizens traveling abroad, while the growth rate in Europe and Asia is lower. On the one hand, as the main destination for Chinese citizens to travel abroad, Asia receives a huge base of Chinese outbound tourists, resulting in a relatively low growth rate. On the other hand, with the increase in the disposable income of Chinese residents and the extension of leisure time, more tourists are able to carry out long-distance intercontinental travel, thus making areas far away from my country such as the Americas and Oceania become more tourist destinations. preferred destination.

Shopping consumption is the main overseas consumption item. We used questionnaires to sample consumption items in major tourist destinations for Chinese citizens traveling abroad, such as Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Australia. statistic and analysis. The number of samples for this sampling statistics is 128 people. It was found that the per capita consumption of my country's outbound tourists abroad is 8,879 yuan (excluding air tickets, hotels and other expenses included in participating in tour groups). Among them, shopping consumption accounted for 71.2%, entertainment consumption accounted for 12.9%, sightseeing and sightseeing accounted for 11.6%, catering consumption accounted for 1.2%, and other consumption accounted for 3.1%. In terms of payment methods, 76% of tourists used cash, and 24% used all or part of credit cards.

Through the analysis of sample survey data, it can be seen that shopping is the most important consumption item among the independent overseas consumption of Chinese tourists. This phenomenon not only shows the strong purchasing power of our country's outbound tourists, but also reflects that local tour guides have a great inducing effect on the independent consumption of our country's outbound tourists.

In addition, influenced by Chinese traditional culture, outbound tourists often need to buy gifts or souvenirs for their family members or relatives and friends, which is also an important reason why they spend more on shopping.

3. Group travel is the main mode of travel

In a sample survey of 128 tourists traveling to Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Australia, we found that when traveling abroad, Among tourists, 59.4% choose group tours, and 26.6% choose self-guided tours. This shows that most tourists currently choose group travel when traveling abroad, that is, joining tour groups organized by travel agencies to carry out tourism activities abroad.

The main reason for this situation is that my country's travel agencies mainly operate group outbound travel products, while self-guided travel products are relatively few. In addition, most of my country's outbound tourists are unfamiliar with overseas situations, have little travel experience, and have low foreign language proficiency, which are also important factors that lead to group travel as the main mode of travel in my country's outbound tourism.

However, with the popularization of information technology applications and the enrichment of people’s travel experience and improvement of foreign language proficiency, more tourists will choose the full set of travel services from overseas travel agencies or directly book overseas individual items through the Internet. Travel services.

Analysis of the outbound travel agency industry

1. The number of overseas tour groups has increased significantly

In recent years, the number of overseas tour groups in my country has increased significantly growth of. In 2002, there were 528 overseas tour groups nationwide. In 2005, the National Tourism Administration once again made adjustments to the overseas tour groups, canceling the qualifications of 5 tour groups and approving 143 new ones. The total number of overseas tour groups reached 672, an increase of 25.84% compared with before the adjustment.

As of August 2005, outbound tour groups accounted for 43.75% of the total number of international travel agencies in the country and 4.37% of the total number of travel agencies in the country. The large growth in the number of overseas travel agencies not only reflects the urgent need for more travel agencies engaged in overseas tourism business in my country's outbound tourism market, but also shows that the team of travel agencies operating outbound tourism business in my country is constantly growing.

2. The wholesale and retail system is taking shape

my country's travel agency industry adopts a horizontal division of labor system and is divided into international travel agencies and domestic travel agencies according to business scope, unlike travel agencies in European and American countries. , adopting a vertical division of labor system, dividing travel agencies into travel wholesalers and travel retailers. However, due to the different development levels of the travel agency industry and the development of the tourism market in various places, there is a contradiction between the limitations of travel agency operations and the dispersion of customer sources in many places in our country. Since it is very expensive for an independent travel agency to independently complete sales, group formation, and operate all business procedures, my country's outbound tourism business resources (such as routes, visas, information, etc.) are mainly concentrated in some large port cities (such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, etc.), some travel agencies in port cities rely on their unique business resources and smooth overseas reception service system to promote outbound tourism products at competitive wholesale prices to travel agencies in source areas, forming a scale effect in terms of passenger flow. Become a national or regional wholesaler.

At the same time, many tour groups in the mainland that have the right to operate outbound tourism have actually become agents or retailers of these wholesalers. Evaluated from the two indicators of profit and cost, for many outbound travel itinerary products, the actual benefits obtained by mainland travel agencies operating outbound tour groups independently are lower than those obtained as agents. Therefore, influenced by the inherent economic laws of the tourism market, my country's outbound travel agency industry has spontaneously formed a wholesale and retail marketing system, and a group of professional wholesalers operating outbound travel business have emerged. However, this wholesale and retail system is still in its infancy and needs further improvement.

3. Marketing methods tend to be differentiated

When marketing outbound tourism, my country's travel agencies have always used the traditional marketing methods of inbound tourism and domestic tourism, that is, by a single entity Travel agencies independently carry out and complete all marketing tasks. However, due to the lack of sufficient capital investment and high-quality staff, the marketing effect of travel agencies is unsatisfactory and the degree of large-scale application is low. With the expansion of my country's outbound market and the development of Internet technology, more and more travel agencies have begun to re-examine the marketing methods of outbound tourism.

Recently, some overseas tour groups in my country have begun to try to combine online marketing with traditional marketing. According to the reality that there are private outbound travel markets and official outbound travel markets in our outbound travel market, based on their own characteristics , adopting marketing methods such as direct marketing, business-to-business (B-to-B) online marketing, and personal relationship marketing to transform the marketing methods of outbound tourism in a differentiated direction.

At present, in the private outbound tourism market, large travel agencies mostly adopt direct sales and make full use of corporate brand marketing strategies. Professional wholesalers use product brands and own local corporate brands and Networking agents for marketing. In the official travel market, travel agencies mainly adopt personal relationship marketing methods.

The development trend of the outbound tourism market

1. The number of outbound tourists continues to grow

As the living standards of our people further improve, the number of outbound tourists will continue to grow.

Through analysis and prediction of the correlation between my country's national economic growth and the growth of outbound tourists, in the next five years, the number of Chinese outbound tourists will maintain an annual growth rate of 10-15%. In 2005, the number of Chinese outbound tourists will exceed 32 million, and in 2010, the number of Chinese outbound tourists will exceed 56 million. According to predictions from the World Tourism Organization (WTO), by 2020, China will have more than 100 million outbound tourists, becoming the world's fourth largest source of outbound tourists.

2. Neighboring countries (regions) are the main destinations

Since the outbound travel market for Chinese citizens, medium and short-distance outbound travel products have been the main products operated by my country’s overseas tour groups. . In the future, Chinese tourists will still choose medium and short-range neighboring countries and regions as their main destinations due to factors such as affordability, leisure time, and cultural differences.

3. Long-distance destinations are the most popular

In recent years, the growth rate of Chinese tourists traveling to long-distance destinations such as America and Oceania has been higher than that of neighboring countries and medium- and short-distance destinations. area. In addition, the number of tourists traveling to Europe accounts for 59% of all long-distance tourists. These circumstances show that remote destinations have become increasingly popular among Chinese outbound tourists.

It is foreseeable that as the payment ability of my country's outbound tourists increases, people's leisure time extends and their understanding of countries in Europe, America and Oceania deepens, remote destinations will become the most popular Vacation destination.

4. Distribution channel competition will gradually replace product competition

Competition among overseas tour groups will gradually transition from current product competition to distribution channel competition. Since most outbound tourists are still immature and highly dependent on travel agencies, travel agencies will remain the main operating channel for outbound tourism in the future. However, as my country's outbound tourism market matures and information technology continues to be updated and improved, new outbound tourism products such as business-to-business (B-to-B), business-to-customer (B-to-C), and online marketing The distribution channels have huge development potential and will gradually form threats and challenges to the traditional outbound tourism product distribution channels dominated by travel agencies, and will have a profound impact on the distribution channel form of China's outbound tourism.