Multiple benefits have promoted the rapid heating up of the industry.
Text丨Heike Finance Xu Junhao
International tourism is heating up again.
Recently, many cities in China have held tourism promotion activities for foreign travel agents, such as Chongqing organized by the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which held the activity of "European travel agents to step on the line in China"; The Shaanxi Department of Culture and Tourism held a Shaanxi Cultural Tourism Promotion Conference in Xi'an to promote tourism resources to representatives of travel agents from 20 countries and regions including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The 2024 Hunan International Cultural Tourism Festival also opened on June 1, with about 1,000 tourism guests from more than 50 countries and regions around the world attending.
The data shows the boom in the industry.
According to the second World Tourism Barometer for 2024 released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the direct GDP of tourism in 2023 has recovered to the pre-epidemic level, reaching 3.3 trillion US dollars (about 23.8 trillion yuan), and the number of global international tourists in the first quarter of 2024 exceeded 285 million, an increase of 20% compared with 2023, and has recovered to 97% of the pre-epidemic level, and the number of passenger arrivals in 2024 is expected to increase by 2% compared with 2019. Passenger arrivals in Asia and the Pacific recovered to 65% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023 and 82% of pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2024.
China occupies an important position in the international tourism market. According to the "China Outbound Tourism Development Report (2023-2024)" released by the China Tourism Research Institute, the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of Chinese outbound tourists in 2023 will exceed 87 million, and it is expected that the number of inbound and outbound tourists in 2024 will be 264 million, and the international tourism revenue will reach 107 billion US dollars (about 774.8 billion yuan).
Inbound and outbound tourism is becoming a bright spot in the domestic tourism industry in 2024. Although the recovery rate of inbound and outbound tourism is slower than that of domestic tourism due to policy, geopolitical and other factors, its market is broader and the increase is extremely considerable.
Leading players in the travel industry have identified inbound and outbound tourism as an important growth point in 2024.
According to the financial report, Tongcheng's revenue in the first quarter of 2024 will be 3.866 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 49.5%, of which the sales of international air tickets will increase by more than 260% year-on-year, and the sales of international hotel room nights will increase by more than 150% year-on-year; Ctrip's revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was 11.921 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29%, of which outbound hotel and air ticket bookings increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and inbound travel orders increased by more than 4 times.
Inbound and outbound tourism is a direct increase in the current tourism industry, which can effectively drive local economic growth and cultural dissemination, and at the same time help to enhance China's influence.
01
How new is the entry
The topic of foreign tourists' travel in China has always been a hot topic on major video platforms.
Douyin blogger "Zhang Stepping Bell", who has more than 8.85 million fans, has posted many such videos, which are quite popular. Zhang's husband, a Canadian, currently resides in China, while her husband's mother, Wendy, travels from Canada to China. Zhang Taling has taken Wendy to experience local characteristic tourism projects such as bathing, Hanfu, and yurts, and the number of likes on related videos ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions.
Wendy, who loves China, is very popular with the audience. According to Heike Finance and Economics, in a video with about 200,000 likes in May, Zhang Taling revealed that Wendy will soon travel to China again. The high praise comment below the video joked that Wendy went to Canada to study and returned to China during the winter and summer vacations.
With 4.5 million followers, the "Crooked Nut Research Association", the up master of Station B, has released a series of videos with the theme of foreign tourists coming to China. These videos show the good experience of tourists from Poland, France, Germany and other countries traveling in China, with an average of more than 400,000 views.
This boom is based on the attractiveness of China's tourism resources and culture itself, as well as the country's opening up to foreign policy. Previously, China has implemented visa-free policies for France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and other countries, and announced on May 7 that it would extend the visa-free policy until the end of 2025. On May 15, the National Immigration Administration of the Ministry of Public Security held a press conference, announcing that foreign tour groups coming to China on cruise ships can enter visa-free from 13 cruise ports such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Dalian, and will continue to improve the convenience of inbound tourism.
Various domestic tourism organizations have also taken corresponding measures. For example, Fliggy participated in the 2024 North China Ice and Snow Tourism Overseas Promotion Season in Malaysia, distributing benefits to Malaysian tourists in China; Ctrip held the Envision 2024 Global Partner Conference in Shanghai and Zhangjiajie, inviting more than 1,600 practitioners from more than 50 countries and regions to discuss the development opportunities of China's cross-border tourism market.
This makes foreign tourists intuitively feel the convenience and comfort of traveling in China.
On the video platform YouTube, many travel bloggers have introduced Beijing, Dali, Lhasa, Kunming and other domestic tourist cities, and the videos are mostly well received by overseas users. For example, Ken Abroad, a German blogger with 326,000 followers, has received between 100,000 and 760,000 views on several videos from his recent trip to China. He has repeatedly mentioned the experience of traveling in China such as visa-free convenience, convenient transportation, and rich food in the video, and expressed his willingness to recommend China to more tourists.
According to the data of the National Immigration Administration, in the first quarter of 2024, the government issued a total of 466,000 visas for foreigners, an increase of 118.8% year-on-year in 2023, and 1.988 million visa-free foreigners entered the country, a year-on-year increase of 266.1%; The number of foreigners coming to China increased by more than 300% year-on-year, and more than 30% of foreigners entered the country for the purpose of tourism.
The service capacity of domestic practitioners is also an important reason for the growth of the industry. Taking Ctrip as an example, overseas users can book a variety of inbound travel products and services such as air tickets, hotels, train tickets, car rentals, and attraction tickets on the Trip.com, and the platform provides services in more than 20 languages and corresponding payment methods, and has launched an online reservation function for more than 600 scenic spots in China. According to the financial report, Trip's revenue in the first quarter of 2024 increased by 80% year-on-year, driving Ctrip's inbound travel bookings to increase by more than 4 times year-on-year.
02
Outbound exports are heating up steadily
The growth in outbound travel is also impressive.
According to the "2024 Cultural Tourism Marketing Insight Report" recently released by research agency QuestMobile, the scale of users of some outbound travel-related apps has increased significantly, and the domestic MAU (monthly active users) of Outbound Easy and Binke (Booking.com) in April 2024 will be 2.68 million and 2.61 million, a year-on-year increase of 727.8% and 13.5%; The number of interactions, including likes, comments, and retweets, has increased from about 600,000 in July 2023 to 1.579 million in April 2024.
According to the "2024 Outbound Travel Trend Outlook of Chinese Residents" released by Tongcheng, with the rapid recovery of international flights and the facilitation of visa policies for major destinations, residents' willingness to travel abroad has increased significantly, with 60% of them saying that they have plans to travel abroad in 2024.
According to Ctrip's official data, so far in the second quarter of 2024, the number of visa applications has increased by multiple compared with 2023, and has also achieved a 20% increase compared with the same period in 2019.
It is worth noting that more and more overseas tourist destinations are paying attention to and paying attention to the Chinese market. For example, at the 2024 ITB Shanghai International Travel Trade Fair, more than 600 tourism organizations and enterprises from more than 80 countries and regions participated in the exhibition, and the number of foreign exhibitors accounted for about 84%, among which Morocco, Peru, Cuba and other countries and cities such as Almaty and Buenos Aires participated for the first time.
The rapid development of outbound tourism also depends on the construction of the global supply chain of domestic players. Ctrip, which has a long-term partnership with ITB, is worth mentioning. According to official data, Ctrip's global travel supply chain has covered more than 1.7 million hotels, more than 600 airlines, and its tourism ecological network has covered more than 90,000 travel agencies, scenic spots, car rental service providers and other partners around the world. According to data from Fastdata, a research agency, Ctrip ranked first in the outbound travel market of domestic OTA platforms in July 2023 with a market share of more than 50% in terms of the number of people served.
This makes it simple and convenient for domestic tourists to book cross-border travel services. Xiao Chen, who works in Guangzhou, told Haike Finance that she chose to travel to Sabah, Malaysia, on May Day because she was afraid that domestic destinations would be more crowded during the holiday, and the one-way flight time was only about 3 hours. Xiao Chen said that she and her boyfriend were busy with work and didn't have time to do detailed strategies, so they directly applied for the boutique group, and the overall experience was more comfortable.
Coffee coffee, who often travels abroad, is accustomed to comparing ticket prices on multiple platforms, and then determining the itinerary according to the air ticket. Kaka told Heike Finance that because of the "squatting" to the cheap air ticket to Spain during the National Day holiday, she has started to make a strategy after buying the ticket and looking for a "travel partner".
The domestic tourism service platform has given a brilliant report card for outbound travel.
According to official data, during the May Day holiday in 2024, Fliggy's outbound travel orders increased by nearly 100% year-on-year compared with 2023; Tuniu's outbound trips increased by 190% year-on-year in 2023, accounting for 27% of the total number of outbound travelers on the platform. The growth rate of Ctrip's inbound and outbound travel is higher than that of domestic travel, and the number of orders for outbound outbound travel to Middle Eastern countries such as Oman and Saudi Arabia increased by more than 3 times year-on-year. Qunar's international air tickets and hotel bookings have reached a record high on the platform.
03
The space is further expanded
In the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival, the growth of inbound and outbound tourism is still obvious.
According to the "2024 Dragon Boat Festival Civil Aviation Travel Forecast Report" released by the civil aviation data platform Air Travel, it is expected that the average daily passenger flights will exceed 14,200 during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, that is, from June 8 to 10, an increase of 6% compared with 2019 and the same period in 2023; Among them, there are more than 4,800 international passenger flights, an increase of about 75% year-on-year in 2023, and has recovered to 75% of the same period in 2019.
The prosperity of inbound and outbound tourism is clearly due to the joint efforts of many parties.
For example, the Shanghai Tourism Administration and other departments issued the "Several Measures for Shanghai to Further Promote the Linkage of Business, Tourism, Culture, Sports and Exhibitions to Attract and Expand Consumption", proposing to provide up to 2 million yuan of support to cruise companies that arrange no less than 15 voyages at the departure port and no less than 2.5% of foreign tourists in Shanghai International Cruise Port throughout the year.
Many tourism organizations are also developing related products. For example, Zhongxin Tourism officially announced that it will launch inbound tourism products that combine the cultural tourism of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River in the future, and develop a variety of products such as cruise ships and river ships, cruise ships and land; From April 15, Ctrip launched the "Shanghai Inbound Free Half-day Tour" program, providing free half-day tour services to international passengers transiting in Shanghai, including transportation, foreign language guides, foreign currency exchange, etc., to encourage more transit passengers to get to know Shanghai and China after entering the country. Fliggy has also opened up a global membership system with MSC Cruises, and official data shows that the number of outbound cruise bookings for Fliggy has exceeded the same period in 2019.
The continuous positive trend has brought more possibilities for domestic tourism service enterprises. According to the international OTA research report released by GF Securities in May 2024, global OTA leaders Binke, Expedia, Ctrip, and TripAdvisor have all achieved growth in 2023 that exceeded that of 2019. The resilience of the overseas travel market recovery in 2024 is mainly due to the recovery process of the Asia-Pacific market, and platforms such as Ctrip are expected to seize this trend.
On the whole, the development level of the domestic tourism industry is steadily improving. The World Economic Forum's Tourism Development Index 2024, which analysed the development of tourism in 119 countries, ranked China 8th overall, up one place from 2019, with strengths in areas such as nature and culture, which also ranked 4th, and non-leisure tourism resources, which ranked 5th.
With the recovery of the global economy and the deepening of international exchanges, China, as an important source and destination of the global tourism market, will surely have greater breakthroughs in inbound and outbound tourism. The leading players in the industry are actively expanding their layout, improving the industry ecology, providing tourists at home and abroad with a higher quality travel experience, and creating more possibilities for their own development, jointly pushing the boom of inbound and outbound tourism to a higher level.