Trip.com Group and UnionPay International, have jointly published the “2019 Chinese Outbound Travel Consumption Report”. The report, combining big data derived from outbound travel product orders and overseas bank card transactions by Chinese nationals provides insights into the cross-border travel consumption trends of Chinese travellers. According to the statistics from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Chinese nationals made more outbound travel expenditures than travellers from any other country, with total consumption reaching US$ 127.5 billion. Online Travel Agencies (OTA) and UnionPay banks are the dominant tools for Chinese travellers for their overseas trips. In 2019, the outbound travel products purchased by Chinese nationals covered 158 countries, 17% growth year-over-year. According to the statistics by UnionPay International, the top ten sources in China in terms of outbound travellers who spent the most were Guangdong, Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Hubei, Shandong, Fujian and Liaoning.
Shopping remained at the top of Chinese outbound travellers’ expenditure categories, but the consumption by Chinese travellers are increasingly diversified, with other top categories including catering, accommodation, tour guides, places of interests, performances, transportation, local entertainment activities, self-driving and cruise. January — November 2019 Travel Report, top 20 destinations for Chinese travellers are: Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, USA, Cambodia, Philippines, Russia, Australia, Italy, UAE, Turkey, France, UK,Myanmar, Maldives, Germany, and New Zealand.
Female outbound travelers were more enthusiastic about shopping during their overseas trips, accounting for 55% of the total outbound travelers who shopped; however, the average shopping expenditure per capita by their male counterparts were 1.15 times more. More female travellers sought bargains and discounts when they traveled overseas, with 64% of the coupons on Trip.com Group’s shopping channel obtained by females. According to the report, the total shopping spending by the generation born in the 1980s ranked at the top, and the generation born in 2000 started travelling and shopping aboard. More than half of the outbound consumption and bookings by Chinese travelers occurred during their trips, instead of booking in advance.
According to the data from orders of group travels and individual travels on Trip.com Group platform, 83% of users chose accommodations with high grades (4 or 5 diamonds). Local entertainment activities with the fastest growth in 2019 on Trip.com Group Things-To-Do platform were diving, hot air balloon rides, helicopter tours, skydiving, SPA, jungle flight, courses, paragliding and sports related games.
Chinese tourists rely on online travel agencies for information about booking products e.g. coupons for products and dears. According to global shopping platform of Ctrip: there are currently 9 shopping brands and 16 merchants in cooperation with them from Russia. Mainly they are concentrated in St.Petersburg and Moscow. These two cities mainly integrated shopping malls and luxury goods, like TSUM and DLT which offer both jewelry and brands. Since 2nd half of 2019, global customers of Ctrip have been shopping in Russia with many Chinese spending more than 50000 yuan per person. Chinese go to malls for luxury as well as airport duty shops . In Russia, there are Chinese signs and services making language no longer an obstacle.
