Where the Far East & the Middle East Meet
Tourism marketing sector encouraged to increase focus on China in developing inbound tourism
Recent months have highlighted China as a strong ‘look-to’ area, especially with regard to growing the Middle East’s inbound tourism sector from the region. And despite the Far East region taking a considerable economic blow from the global financial crisis, it has still been viewed as a viable sector by Gulf investors.
“China is a strong sector in its own right and the region’s travellers – be they business or leisure oriented – might restructure their travel planning over the next few months to ensure better value for spend, but they will still travel,” said John Koldowski, Director: Strategic Intelligence Centre of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).
John, who will be discussing the marketing of tourism to China and India at the Middle East Tourism Marketing Summit in December later this year said that knowledge, and the processing of information into sustainable marketing initiatives was key to the Middle East tapping ‘Middle Kingdom markets’. Summit organiser and PATA’s Regional Director: Gulf, Nicki Page, added that the METMS would provide an ideal platform for exploring such initiatives and that the industry’s hottest issues, such as developing the relationship between the Middle East and the Far East, were on the Summit agenda.
John’s sentiments are supported by statistics gathered via a survey conducted by The Nielsen Company recently. The survey looked at China’s outbound travel market in an attempt to gain a better grasp of what the region’s travellers preferred when it came to travel.
The survey showed that stress relief was one of the top motives for Chinese travel. Vacation or leisure-purpose travel took the lead in reasons for China’s outbound travel, followed by business travel. Use of the internet dominated travel research amongst the Chinese, with 70% of those who participated in the survey stating that they turned to the web for travel answers.
More than 80% of people said they conducted a search of information about their destination prior to taking the trip, and although travel agents still took the lead when it came to actually booking travel, online booking was on the increase. Most travellers, findings revealed, were among the Chinese middle-class group. Furthermore, four- star accommodation was the most popular choice, followed closely by three-star accommodation; and most leisure travellers preferred to pay in cash, although credit-card payment was increasing in popularity.
The report also noted that destinations were becoming more and more competitive in relation to each other to attract Chinese travellers and as a result, John said, tourism marketing needed attention if regions were going to capture the attention of Chinese travellers.
“Yes, we are facing a recession. And yes, money is tight. But people are still travelling. Companies need to focus their efforts and factor in the available information to determine whether their tourism marketing is making a difference. Should tourism marketing sectors, such as those in the Middle East want to retain a valuable market share in China’s travel movements, obtaining the right information is key, along with structuring their tourism marketing to suit the target market’s preferences. Anything else, and you’re simply singing to the wind … your message is going to be blown away.”
