Published on : Monday, July 15, 2019
Chinese travelers are popular for being huge spenders as these tourists spent USD 115.3 billion during their trips. With a powerful number in outbound tourism and deep pockets, more and more travel companies are curating their products towards this group.
Because of the huge numbers of Chinese, ASEAN countries are more welcoming to this group. It started small with signs and menus translated in Mandarin to having Chinese speaking staff and Chinese-only establishments.
Is China becoming authoritative in tourism?
Tourists from China have been rushing to Southeast Asian countries, which are suitably located for China. For instance, Thailand has been welcoming more than 10 million tourists from China every year in the past three years. Almost one-third of Thailand’s 35.38 million foreign tourists came from China in 2017. Vietnam has welcomed almost 5 million Chinese tourists arrived in last year, almost one-third of its 15.49 million foreign tourists. In Indonesia, around 2.1 million Chinese tourists arrived in 2017, out of its total 14.04 million foreign tourists in the same year.
A similar situation happens in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Here the number of Chinese tourists has been persistently increasing. In 2018, it is estimated that almost 25 million Chinese visited ASEAN countries, in general. This number may double in the coming five years.
There are several reasons behind the rising numbers of Chinese tourists during the last 15 years and why they flock ASEAN countries.