The 10,157 star-rated hotels in China reported operating revenues totaling RMB 54.43 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).
Catering revenue was RMB 23.09 billion, accounting for 42.42% of the operating revenues, while guest room revenue was RMB 24.49 billion, equivalent to 44.99% of the total revenues.
Of the 10,157 audited star-rated hotels, 72 one-star hotels netted a total of RMB 31 million in operating revenue; 1,972 two-star hotels posted RMB 2.154 billion; 4,937 three-star hotels registered RMB 12.963 billion; 2,367 four-star hotels reported RMB 18.649 billion; and 809 five-star hotels grossed RMB 20.637 billion.
The star-rated hotels reported ADR (average daily rate) at RMB 341.13 per room night and average occupancy rate of 56.6% during the period. RevPAR (revenue per available room) was RMB 193.07 per room night and the revenue per guestroom for the quarter was RMB 36,084.20.
BTG Hotels, a state-controlled hotel group headquartered in Beijing, announced that its operating revenue in the first three months of 2017 was RMB 1.913 billion, 437.35% more than the same period of 2016.
Total profits rose 210.79% to RMB 102 million. Net profit attributable to parent company was RMB 34.81 million, a 395.55% increase from a year ago.
Homeinns Hotel, a consolidated unit of BTG Hotels, contributed RMB 1.55 billion, or 81.02% of BTG’s total operating revenue in the period.
BTG Hotels has 3,403 hotels and 371,279 guestrooms as of March 31, 2017.
Shanghai-based GreenTree Inns, an economy hotel management company, has entered into a strategic partnership with domestic counterpart Yibon Hotels Group. GreenTree has also tied up with an undisclosed overseas private equity company to invest RMB 150 million in Yibon’s funding round.
GreenTree was founded in 2004 and has nowis managing more than 2,800 hotels in 400-plus Chinese cities. Yibon was inaugurated in 2010 and has nearly 500 budget hotels in more than 80 cities in the country.
The ITB China Startup Award recognizes companies that have turned dreams and ideas into viable business solutions with great market potential.
Short-listed innovators from startup companies which launched their products within the last three years will demonstrate their innovative solutions to the jury comprising experienced industry professionals.
In their eight-minute pitch, the innovators have to explain how their product will impact the future of the travel industry. The pitch will take place on May 11 from 3:20 pm to 4:50 pm in the Conference Center. Afterwards the jury will determine the winner of the first ITB China Startup Award during a ceremony.
Winning the award includes a nine sqm basic shell scheme booth worth more than 4,000 USD at ITB China 2018 to showcase their product.
The jury consists of the following four members of experienced industry professionals: Philip Wolf, Phocuswright (Patronage), Gang Chen, Group Senior Vice President, Ctrip, Jay You, Yuantai Investment Partners Evergreen Fund Partner and Le Yu, Managing Director, Ping An Ventures.
They have selected the following six nominees for the Startup Award 2017:
MySmark is a customer experience platform that provides research and digital marketing tools for online travel and commerce. Research means collecting data using different touchpoints with survey tools and templates to profile consumers-brands-destinations.
Digital marketing tools can transfer research into personalized dynamic content and recommendation in the form of: advertising campaigns, dynamic landing pages, email marketing campaigns and customer experience personalization. MySmark tools are based on unique IP and 2 patents pending in multiple jurisdictions across Europe, US, Asia.
Go with Tommy, a handy and lovely audio guide mobile App tailored for Chinese overseas travelers. It has been ranking as top 3 in the travel translation category on Apple App Store.
Golf Voyager represents a revolution in the way that people book their golf vacations. The client can book all facets of their golf package at best price in real time with instant confirmation. Combining booking.com, rentalcars.com, live tee times and coach hire companies – golf voyager will build intelligent itineraries.
Golf Voyager provides the tools to the industry to make their offers to the customer like they have been trying to do for the past 100 years. Golf Voyager also supply widgets to the golf course, hotels, tourist boards and 3rd party websites giving the product endless channels of distribution.
Moti Travel, a leading one-stop service provider of industrial tour in China, develops platforms to enable new forms of interactions between manufacturers and consumers, also provides unique educational tour products to the tourism market. Moti Travel transforms unused spaces of factories to tourist attractions, also designs and provides ‘Fun in Factories’ programs for educational groups and family groups.
NuanYou aims to solve the main pain points for Chinese tourists going abroad like “cannot read, cannot understand, cannot find” based on technology innovation. Equipped with NuanYou integrated marketing & mobile payment solutions, overseas merchants will own better chances to grasp more business and provide quality service to Chinese travellers. Our vision is to Make FITs Enjoy Local Lifestyle.
TripCreator is an award-winning trip planning solution which serves as a white label solution for travel agencies, OTA’s and airlines. The solution enables in-house sales people to create and suggest a full and final itinerary for their customers in a matter of minutes.
Their customers can modify and complete their itinerary, then book everything in a single checkout. Online their customers can create a completely personalized itinerary in seconds from scratch. This includes locating and arranging accommodation, transportation, tours and activities and points of interests.
ITB China will take place from May 10-12, 2017 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Conference Center. The event, an international offshoot of one of Messe Berlin’s most successful trade fairs, will take place annually and focus on the Chinese travel industry. Its co-organiser is TravelDaily China, a leading online news portal and organiser of travel industry conferences in Asia’s largest country.
Tourism, Travel, Hospitality, Conservation: News,Stories And Experiences From Allover The World
Showing posts with label CNTA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNTA. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
Tuesday, 25 April 2017
INDONESIA: 1.7 million Chinese Visitors Enter Indonesia
Head of Chinese Tourism National Administration (CNTA) Li Jinzao said that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia has risen by a good measure of 20%. In the meantime, he added that the number of Indonesian tourists to China was recorded to rise by 16%.
This reflects good tourism cooperation between the two countries. He said he hopes that the cooperation between Indonesia and China only improves with time.
Earlier, Indonesian Tourism Minister, Arief Yahya, said China is currently the biggest source of tourist arrivals in Indonesia; leaving behind Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, and Korea.
“We have set ourselves the target of attracting 20 million tourists in 2019 and nearly 50% of them will come from China,” he disclosed.
It is important to step up tourism cooperation with China to achieve the desired target.
In this regard, he accentuated how important it is to step up tourism cooperation with China to achieve the desired target. Moreover, he promised that his ministry will also be focusing on promoting the “Great China” branding.
This covers a trio of Asian countries China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Yahya also invited Chinese investors to try their luck with the Indonesian tourism industry.
We invite Chinese investors engaged in the tourism sector to invest in Indonesia which offers natural and cultural attractions. Now is the time to make long-term investments in the tourism sector, he said.
While down 1.9% from the previous month, the figure marks an increase of almost 20% than in the same month of 2015.
It was the second month in a row and the fourth time so far this year that the Chinese-governed in the tourism sector, followed closely by Singaporean and Australian travelers. Most of the Chinese tourists opted for beautiful and very beachy Bali as their destination.
The Tourism Ministry’s deputy minister for overseas promotion, I Gde Pitana, attributed to the rising trend of the holiday season in August in China and the government’s efforts to attract more visitors’ discussion.
He said the ministry would remain focused on its tourism promotion program in China until the end of the year to introduce the archipelago in several major cities, such as Beijing and Shenzhen.
The government aims to attract at least 1.7 million Chinese tourists this year; 1.3 million more than the last year. It has scrapped the visa fees for Chinese travelers, making China one of 169 countries the nationals of which enjoy free entry to Indonesia.
This is not all. For this month, the ministry has geared up for the Chinese Golden Week; a seven-day national holiday period that starts on Oct. 1.
It has established healthy connections with travel agents and tour operators in Bali and China since July to offer tourism packages to places like Bali and Manado, North Sulawesi.
“That way, Chinese companies won’t send their employees to Thailand for the holidays. They can just go to those destinations instead,” Pitana said.
He also mentioned that several airlines were also on board to achieve the 1.7 million tourist target to help this tourism plan further.
The country’s largest low-cost carrier, Lion Air, is serving direct flights from six Chinese cities. The airline hopes to fly at least 30,000 Chinese tourists to Manado by the end of the year. Whereas, Garuda Indonesia has flown holidaymakers from three major Chinese cities to Jakarta. These Chinese cities are namely Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
BPS head Suhariyanto said that the visitors contained in the statistics were all tourists and not workers and that it was not just in one country but others as well; meaning the Chinese were traveling all over the world as tourists.
“The surge is not happening in Indonesia alone, but also in other countries, supported by the tourists’ higher earning per capita as China’s economy grows,” he said.
Hotels have started facilitating the tourists in just the right way
Moreover, the hotels have started facilitating the tourists in just the right way. Jayakarta Hotels and Resorts president director Edwin Dhanu said the chain had prepared several services to accommodate the increasing number of tourists.
“We have prepared a separate, special breakfast called Chinese breakfast in which we provide bread, porridge, and dim sum,” he said that it was different from the full buffet breakfast offered exclusively to Australian tourists.
Jayakarta also employed Mandarin-speaking staff in the guest reservation divisions in Jakarta and Bali who tend to most of the Chinese guests.
The both countries are doing everything to keep growing and keep their tourism industry booming with each other’s help.
This reflects good tourism cooperation between the two countries. He said he hopes that the cooperation between Indonesia and China only improves with time.
Earlier, Indonesian Tourism Minister, Arief Yahya, said China is currently the biggest source of tourist arrivals in Indonesia; leaving behind Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, and Korea.
“We have set ourselves the target of attracting 20 million tourists in 2019 and nearly 50% of them will come from China,” he disclosed.
It is important to step up tourism cooperation with China to achieve the desired target.
In this regard, he accentuated how important it is to step up tourism cooperation with China to achieve the desired target. Moreover, he promised that his ministry will also be focusing on promoting the “Great China” branding.
This covers a trio of Asian countries China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Yahya also invited Chinese investors to try their luck with the Indonesian tourism industry.
We invite Chinese investors engaged in the tourism sector to invest in Indonesia which offers natural and cultural attractions. Now is the time to make long-term investments in the tourism sector, he said.
While down 1.9% from the previous month, the figure marks an increase of almost 20% than in the same month of 2015.
It was the second month in a row and the fourth time so far this year that the Chinese-governed in the tourism sector, followed closely by Singaporean and Australian travelers. Most of the Chinese tourists opted for beautiful and very beachy Bali as their destination.
The Tourism Ministry’s deputy minister for overseas promotion, I Gde Pitana, attributed to the rising trend of the holiday season in August in China and the government’s efforts to attract more visitors’ discussion.
He said the ministry would remain focused on its tourism promotion program in China until the end of the year to introduce the archipelago in several major cities, such as Beijing and Shenzhen.
The government aims to attract at least 1.7 million Chinese tourists this year; 1.3 million more than the last year. It has scrapped the visa fees for Chinese travelers, making China one of 169 countries the nationals of which enjoy free entry to Indonesia.
This is not all. For this month, the ministry has geared up for the Chinese Golden Week; a seven-day national holiday period that starts on Oct. 1.
It has established healthy connections with travel agents and tour operators in Bali and China since July to offer tourism packages to places like Bali and Manado, North Sulawesi.
“That way, Chinese companies won’t send their employees to Thailand for the holidays. They can just go to those destinations instead,” Pitana said.
He also mentioned that several airlines were also on board to achieve the 1.7 million tourist target to help this tourism plan further.
The country’s largest low-cost carrier, Lion Air, is serving direct flights from six Chinese cities. The airline hopes to fly at least 30,000 Chinese tourists to Manado by the end of the year. Whereas, Garuda Indonesia has flown holidaymakers from three major Chinese cities to Jakarta. These Chinese cities are namely Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
BPS head Suhariyanto said that the visitors contained in the statistics were all tourists and not workers and that it was not just in one country but others as well; meaning the Chinese were traveling all over the world as tourists.
“The surge is not happening in Indonesia alone, but also in other countries, supported by the tourists’ higher earning per capita as China’s economy grows,” he said.
Hotels have started facilitating the tourists in just the right way
Moreover, the hotels have started facilitating the tourists in just the right way. Jayakarta Hotels and Resorts president director Edwin Dhanu said the chain had prepared several services to accommodate the increasing number of tourists.
“We have prepared a separate, special breakfast called Chinese breakfast in which we provide bread, porridge, and dim sum,” he said that it was different from the full buffet breakfast offered exclusively to Australian tourists.
Jayakarta also employed Mandarin-speaking staff in the guest reservation divisions in Jakarta and Bali who tend to most of the Chinese guests.
The both countries are doing everything to keep growing and keep their tourism industry booming with each other’s help.
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
CHINA: Chinese Tourists No Manners, But Have The Money
When a busload of Chinese tourists took a break at a highway toll station near Frankfurt, Germany, on an autumn afternoon in October, their translator and guide Linda Li told her charges they could use the toilet for €0.7 (HK$6.62).
"If you don't have the change, come to me," the veteran tour guide recalled telling them.
The mention of the fee caused a stir on the bus. Many were on their first overseas trip and grumbled that back home in China pay-to-use toilets cost only 0.5 yuan (HK$0.63). Several of the men decided not go to the loo. Instead, they walked to an open spot to relieve themselves.
Li shook her head and looked away - she had half-expected them to do so because it is common among first-time Chinese travellers.
But what happened next took even her by surprise: a well-dressed middle-aged man followed suit to pee in public.
"I was dumbfounded," said the tour guide of seven years. "This same person who refused to pay €0.7 had on the same trip spent thousands of euros on a Vacheron Constantin watch."
The incident captured all too acutely the conundrum host countries find themselves in: boorish Chinese tourists bringing them piles of cash but also mountains of problems. The visitors seem to have the means, but not the manners. Locals get upset, facilities get damaged, tempers are frayed, and in many cases other tourists turn tail when they know the Chinese are coming, causing a dent in earnings.
And their ranks keep growing. By November, more than 100 million mainland Chinese had travelled abroad this year, a record for China, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). For the whole of last year, 98.2 million went overseas. Asian destinations, including Hong Kong and Macau, continued to receive the bulk of the travellers - 85.4 million by November. Europe, their second most popular destination, hosted 3.4 million over the same period, while Africa, in third place, drew 2.7 million Chinese visitors.
Their burgeoning numbers mean bigger spending. The Chinese overtook Americans and Germans as the world's top-spending tourists in 2013, according to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, (UNWTO). While the Chinese spent US$128.6 billion on international travel, Americans spent US$104.7 billion and Germans US$91.4 billion. The latest UNWTO data shows the Chinese remain the biggest spenders this year.
While this side of the balance sheet to Chinese tourism is welcomed, destination countries also have had to cope with the ugly side of this particular travel boom. Last year, a 15-year-old Chinese tourist defaced a stone sculpture in a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple with graffiti, generating a stir worldwide and a backlash at home. Many Chinese cringed at the shame and embarrassment brought on them. The boy's parents later apologised.
In Hong Kong, tensions have risen against the Chinese tourists and spilled into furious name-calling. Anger reached boiling point earlier this year when a mainland couple allowed their two-year-old to defecate on a Hong Kong street. Mocking the mainlanders, a group of Hong Kong protesters sat on yellow plastic poos in a crowded mall.
Chinese tourists made international headlines yet again this month after four threw hot water and noodles at a Thai flight attendant. They were reportedly angry over their seating arrangements and the lack of receipts for their tickets. The CNTA promptly "blacklisted" the tourists from joining overseas tours offered by Chinese travel agencies.
Swamped by the avalanche of criticism against their citizens, the Chinese authorities are resorting to lecturing, cajoling and the law to change behaviour. The country's first tourism laws came into effect in October last year, tackling mostly domestic tourism infractions.
The authorities also published guidelines for travelling overseas, which state: "Tourists shall observe public order and respect social morality in tourism activities, respect local customs, cultural traditions and religious beliefs, care for tourism resources, protect the ecological environment, and abide by the norms of civilised tourist behaviour."
A month before that, the CNTA published an 64-page illustrated Guidebook for Civilised Tourism to educate the travelling public on social norms abroad, offering advice on topics from queue jumping to toilet use.
Even President Xi Jinping weighed in, urging his countrymen to behave overseas. "Do not leave water bottles everywhere. Do not damage coral reefs. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood," Xi advised during an official visit to the Maldives in September.
In the Indian Ocean island nation, whose economy relies heavily on tourism and which received 332,000 Chinese tourists last year, some luxury resorts last year stopped providing Chinese guests with hot water to stop them skipping meals in favour of cup noodles, triggering anger and calls for a boycott on China's social media.
"Sadly, Xi's speech has made no impact whatsoever on the tourists," said Jenny Wang, a Beijing-based Maldives travel agent. "The good ones are good, but the bad apples remain the same."
She added that many still did not tip, even though they had been advised to do so and told that service workers in the Maldives rely on tips to boost their meagre earnings.
Seasoned guides also point a finger at the cut-throat competition among travel agencies to sell tour packages. The low prices tend to attract lower-end customers who have not been exposed to the world through travel. While boorish behaviour broke all class barriers, those unused to travel tend were more likely to behave poorly, the agents said.
Li said that in recent years many mainland agencies would advertise tours at unrealistically low prices, sometimes barely covering the air tickets. To make money, tour guides would later be forced to collect extra fees from travellers, or take them on "shopping tours". Both practices have been banned by China's tourism authority.
On Ctrip.com, China's largest online travel agency, a six-day tour of Thailand from Shanghai was being sold for just 3,999 yuan (HK$5,000) last week. The package included a guide, meals, round-trip tickets and five nights' stay at "five-star hotels", according to its advertisement. A typical return flight from Shanghai to Bangkok would cost anything between 1600 and 2800 yuan.
"Travelling abroad is a luxury," said Li, who works for a top travel agency in Sichuan . "But the fact is we are selling our tours at such low prices that people on lower incomes and with little education can now easily afford them. Unlike seasoned travellers, they know little about foreign culture and customs.
"Most of the middle-class travellers I have worked with are educated, civilised and always well behaved.
"If we sell international tours for no less than 5,000 yuan, we will be able to weed out a lot of 'bad tourists'." She suggested China set minimum tour prices in law to end unfair competition and deceptive marketing.
Wang echoed Li's sentiments: "Those on a limited budget are usually rude and obsessed with taking advantages of others."
Tour guides say it is extremely hard to manage or "educate" the "bad" tourists. In the latest incident, the assault of the Thai flight attendant, the CNTA said it might also punish the tour guide travelling with them, but tour operators said this was unfair.
"If their parents failed to teach them good manners in all these years, how are we supposed to do it?" Li protested.
Travel experts also say that Chinese tourists tend to be unfairly tarred by the same brush as the mischief-makers even though many of the travellers behave impeccably.
"My mainland guests all turned out to be extremely polite and educated," said Liu Fong-yu, a lawyer who rents rooms at his home in Taipei to travellers on the popular online accommodation service, Airbnb.
"Once I took my guests to the Eslite bookstore, and they bought books by Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov.
"Two sisters who recently stayed with me chatted with me until 1am about the works of renowned Taiwanese writer and poet Chiang Hsun."
Retired engineer Shi Ming from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is a passionate traveller who tries to "observe and interact" with locals when touring. Despite her limited English, she made friends across 23 states during a tour of the United States in 2011.
During one flight she sat next to a native American woman.
"We chatted with the help of dictionaries and drawings," Shi said. "She shared her snacks and we exchanged life stories."
Li Jinglong, an assistant professor at the department of tourism management at Anhui University's School of Business, said: "Educating our tourists should be a priority for China. Otherwise, things will only get uglier."
China could start by encouraging its tourism industry to explore "education-based" tours, he said.
"In the US, Britain, Australia, and Taiwan, governments and NGOs have set up educational groups, for example in national parks, where visitors learn about nature and making a difference as a volunteer," Li said.
"In China, tourism is about making money.
"If we manage to teach Chinese travellers to respect and protect nature through such activities, they will become more civilised and responsible tourists wherever they go."
Other scholars, however, say courtesy begins at home. "We need to admit that Chinese people are rude abroad because they are rude at home," said Liu Simin, a researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Many Chinese tourists were new to travel and had not mastered the skills of appreciating other cultures, Liu said. Like China itself, they catapulted from near-isolation to embracing the world in double quick time.
"If you don't have the change, come to me," the veteran tour guide recalled telling them.
The mention of the fee caused a stir on the bus. Many were on their first overseas trip and grumbled that back home in China pay-to-use toilets cost only 0.5 yuan (HK$0.63). Several of the men decided not go to the loo. Instead, they walked to an open spot to relieve themselves.
Li shook her head and looked away - she had half-expected them to do so because it is common among first-time Chinese travellers.
But what happened next took even her by surprise: a well-dressed middle-aged man followed suit to pee in public.
"I was dumbfounded," said the tour guide of seven years. "This same person who refused to pay €0.7 had on the same trip spent thousands of euros on a Vacheron Constantin watch."
The incident captured all too acutely the conundrum host countries find themselves in: boorish Chinese tourists bringing them piles of cash but also mountains of problems. The visitors seem to have the means, but not the manners. Locals get upset, facilities get damaged, tempers are frayed, and in many cases other tourists turn tail when they know the Chinese are coming, causing a dent in earnings.
And their ranks keep growing. By November, more than 100 million mainland Chinese had travelled abroad this year, a record for China, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). For the whole of last year, 98.2 million went overseas. Asian destinations, including Hong Kong and Macau, continued to receive the bulk of the travellers - 85.4 million by November. Europe, their second most popular destination, hosted 3.4 million over the same period, while Africa, in third place, drew 2.7 million Chinese visitors.
Their burgeoning numbers mean bigger spending. The Chinese overtook Americans and Germans as the world's top-spending tourists in 2013, according to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, (UNWTO). While the Chinese spent US$128.6 billion on international travel, Americans spent US$104.7 billion and Germans US$91.4 billion. The latest UNWTO data shows the Chinese remain the biggest spenders this year.
While this side of the balance sheet to Chinese tourism is welcomed, destination countries also have had to cope with the ugly side of this particular travel boom. Last year, a 15-year-old Chinese tourist defaced a stone sculpture in a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple with graffiti, generating a stir worldwide and a backlash at home. Many Chinese cringed at the shame and embarrassment brought on them. The boy's parents later apologised.
In Hong Kong, tensions have risen against the Chinese tourists and spilled into furious name-calling. Anger reached boiling point earlier this year when a mainland couple allowed their two-year-old to defecate on a Hong Kong street. Mocking the mainlanders, a group of Hong Kong protesters sat on yellow plastic poos in a crowded mall.
Chinese tourists made international headlines yet again this month after four threw hot water and noodles at a Thai flight attendant. They were reportedly angry over their seating arrangements and the lack of receipts for their tickets. The CNTA promptly "blacklisted" the tourists from joining overseas tours offered by Chinese travel agencies.
Swamped by the avalanche of criticism against their citizens, the Chinese authorities are resorting to lecturing, cajoling and the law to change behaviour. The country's first tourism laws came into effect in October last year, tackling mostly domestic tourism infractions.
The authorities also published guidelines for travelling overseas, which state: "Tourists shall observe public order and respect social morality in tourism activities, respect local customs, cultural traditions and religious beliefs, care for tourism resources, protect the ecological environment, and abide by the norms of civilised tourist behaviour."
A month before that, the CNTA published an 64-page illustrated Guidebook for Civilised Tourism to educate the travelling public on social norms abroad, offering advice on topics from queue jumping to toilet use.
Even President Xi Jinping weighed in, urging his countrymen to behave overseas. "Do not leave water bottles everywhere. Do not damage coral reefs. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood," Xi advised during an official visit to the Maldives in September.
In the Indian Ocean island nation, whose economy relies heavily on tourism and which received 332,000 Chinese tourists last year, some luxury resorts last year stopped providing Chinese guests with hot water to stop them skipping meals in favour of cup noodles, triggering anger and calls for a boycott on China's social media.
"Sadly, Xi's speech has made no impact whatsoever on the tourists," said Jenny Wang, a Beijing-based Maldives travel agent. "The good ones are good, but the bad apples remain the same."
She added that many still did not tip, even though they had been advised to do so and told that service workers in the Maldives rely on tips to boost their meagre earnings.
Seasoned guides also point a finger at the cut-throat competition among travel agencies to sell tour packages. The low prices tend to attract lower-end customers who have not been exposed to the world through travel. While boorish behaviour broke all class barriers, those unused to travel tend were more likely to behave poorly, the agents said.
Li said that in recent years many mainland agencies would advertise tours at unrealistically low prices, sometimes barely covering the air tickets. To make money, tour guides would later be forced to collect extra fees from travellers, or take them on "shopping tours". Both practices have been banned by China's tourism authority.
On Ctrip.com, China's largest online travel agency, a six-day tour of Thailand from Shanghai was being sold for just 3,999 yuan (HK$5,000) last week. The package included a guide, meals, round-trip tickets and five nights' stay at "five-star hotels", according to its advertisement. A typical return flight from Shanghai to Bangkok would cost anything between 1600 and 2800 yuan.
"Travelling abroad is a luxury," said Li, who works for a top travel agency in Sichuan . "But the fact is we are selling our tours at such low prices that people on lower incomes and with little education can now easily afford them. Unlike seasoned travellers, they know little about foreign culture and customs.
"Most of the middle-class travellers I have worked with are educated, civilised and always well behaved.
"If we sell international tours for no less than 5,000 yuan, we will be able to weed out a lot of 'bad tourists'." She suggested China set minimum tour prices in law to end unfair competition and deceptive marketing.
Wang echoed Li's sentiments: "Those on a limited budget are usually rude and obsessed with taking advantages of others."
Tour guides say it is extremely hard to manage or "educate" the "bad" tourists. In the latest incident, the assault of the Thai flight attendant, the CNTA said it might also punish the tour guide travelling with them, but tour operators said this was unfair.
"If their parents failed to teach them good manners in all these years, how are we supposed to do it?" Li protested.
Travel experts also say that Chinese tourists tend to be unfairly tarred by the same brush as the mischief-makers even though many of the travellers behave impeccably.
"My mainland guests all turned out to be extremely polite and educated," said Liu Fong-yu, a lawyer who rents rooms at his home in Taipei to travellers on the popular online accommodation service, Airbnb.
"Once I took my guests to the Eslite bookstore, and they bought books by Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov.
"Two sisters who recently stayed with me chatted with me until 1am about the works of renowned Taiwanese writer and poet Chiang Hsun."
Retired engineer Shi Ming from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is a passionate traveller who tries to "observe and interact" with locals when touring. Despite her limited English, she made friends across 23 states during a tour of the United States in 2011.
During one flight she sat next to a native American woman.
"We chatted with the help of dictionaries and drawings," Shi said. "She shared her snacks and we exchanged life stories."
Li Jinglong, an assistant professor at the department of tourism management at Anhui University's School of Business, said: "Educating our tourists should be a priority for China. Otherwise, things will only get uglier."
China could start by encouraging its tourism industry to explore "education-based" tours, he said.
"In the US, Britain, Australia, and Taiwan, governments and NGOs have set up educational groups, for example in national parks, where visitors learn about nature and making a difference as a volunteer," Li said.
"In China, tourism is about making money.
"If we manage to teach Chinese travellers to respect and protect nature through such activities, they will become more civilised and responsible tourists wherever they go."
Other scholars, however, say courtesy begins at home. "We need to admit that Chinese people are rude abroad because they are rude at home," said Liu Simin, a researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Many Chinese tourists were new to travel and had not mastered the skills of appreciating other cultures, Liu said. Like China itself, they catapulted from near-isolation to embracing the world in double quick time.
Tuesday, 22 December 2015
Chinese Tourists Have Money, But Zero Manners,They Bring Cash And Mountains Of Trouble.
When a busload of Chinese tourists took a break at a highway toll station near Frankfurt, Germany, on an autumn afternoon in October, their translator and guide Linda Li told her charges they could use the toilet for €0.7 (HK$6.62).
"If you don't have the change, come to me," the veteran tour guide recalled telling them.
The mention of the fee caused a stir on the bus. Many were on their first overseas trip and grumbled that back home in China pay-to-use toilets cost only 0.5 yuan (HK$0.63). Several of the men decided not go to the loo. Instead, they walked to an open spot to relieve themselves.
Li shook her head and looked away - she had half-expected them to do so because it is common among first-time Chinese travellers.
But what happened next took even her by surprise: a well-dressed middle-aged man followed suit to pee in public.
"I was dumbfounded," said the tour guide of seven years. "This same person who refused to pay €0.7 had on the same trip spent thousands of euros on a Vacheron Constantin watch."
The incident captured all too acutely the conundrum host countries find themselves in: boorish Chinese tourists bringing them piles of cash but also mountains of problems. The visitors seem to have the means, but not the manners. Locals get upset, facilities get damaged, tempers are frayed, and in many cases other tourists turn tail when they know the Chinese are coming, causing a dent in earnings.
And their ranks keep growing. By November, more than 100 million mainland Chinese had travelled abroad this year, a record for China, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). For the whole of last year, 98.2 million went overseas. Asian destinations, including Hong Kong and Macau, continued to receive the bulk of the travellers - 85.4 million by November. Europe, their second most popular destination, hosted 3.4 million over the same period, while Africa, in third place, drew 2.7 million Chinese visitors.
Their burgeoning numbers mean bigger spending. The Chinese overtook Americans and Germans as the world's top-spending tourists in 2013, according to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, (UNWTO). While the Chinese spent US$128.6 billion on international travel, Americans spent US$104.7 billion and Germans US$91.4 billion. The latest UNWTO data shows the Chinese remain the biggest spenders this year.
While this side of the balance sheet to Chinese tourism is welcomed, destination countries also have had to cope with the ugly side of this particular travel boom. Last year, a 15-year-old Chinese tourist defaced a stone sculpture in a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple with graffiti, generating a stir worldwide and a backlash at home. Many Chinese cringed at the shame and embarrassment brought on them. The boy's parents later apologised.
In Hong Kong, tensions have risen against the Chinese tourists and spilled into furious name-calling. Anger reached boiling point earlier this year when a mainland couple allowed their two-year-old to defecate on a Hong Kong street. Mocking the mainlanders, a group of Hong Kong protesters sat on yellow plastic poos in a crowded mall.
Chinese tourists made international headlines yet again this month after four threw hot water and noodles at a Thai flight attendant. They were reportedly angry over their seating arrangements and the lack of receipts for their tickets. The CNTA promptly "blacklisted" the tourists from joining overseas tours offered by Chinese travel agencies.
Swamped by the avalanche of criticism against their citizens, the Chinese authorities are resorting to lecturing, cajoling and the law to change behaviour. The country's first tourism laws came into effect in October last year, tackling mostly domestic tourism infractions.
The authorities also published guidelines for travelling overseas, which state: "Tourists shall observe public order and respect social morality in tourism activities, respect local customs, cultural traditions and religious beliefs, care for tourism resources, protect the ecological environment, and abide by the norms of civilised tourist behaviour."
A month before that, the CNTA published an 64-page illustrated Guidebook for Civilised Tourism to educate the travelling public on social norms abroad, offering advice on topics from queue jumping to toilet use.
Even President Xi Jinping weighed in, urging his countrymen to behave overseas. "Do not leave water bottles everywhere. Do not damage coral reefs. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood," Xi advised during an official visit to the Maldives in September.
In the Indian Ocean island nation, whose economy relies heavily on tourism and which received 332,000 Chinese tourists last year, some luxury resorts last year stopped providing Chinese guests with hot water to stop them skipping meals in favour of cup noodles, triggering anger and calls for a boycott on China's social media.
"Sadly, Xi's speech has made no impact whatsoever on the tourists," said Jenny Wang, a Beijing-based Maldives travel agent. "The good ones are good, but the bad apples remain the same."
She added that many still did not tip, even though they had been advised to do so and told that service workers in the Maldives rely on tips to boost their meagre earnings.
Seasoned guides also point a finger at the cut-throat competition among travel agencies to sell tour packages. The low prices tend to attract lower-end customers who have not been exposed to the world through travel. While boorish behaviour broke all class barriers, those unused to travel tend were more likely to behave poorly, the agents said.
Li said that in recent years many mainland agencies would advertise tours at unrealistically low prices, sometimes barely covering the air tickets. To make money, tour guides would later be forced to collect extra fees from travellers, or take them on "shopping tours". Both practices have been banned by China's tourism authority.
On Ctrip.com, China's largest online travel agency, a six-day tour of Thailand from Shanghai was being sold for just 3,999 yuan (HK$5,000) last week. The package included a guide, meals, round-trip tickets and five nights' stay at "five-star hotels", according to its advertisement. A typical return flight from Shanghai to Bangkok would cost anything between 1600 and 2800 yuan.
"Travelling abroad is a luxury," said Li, who works for a top travel agency in Sichuan . "But the fact is we are selling our tours at such low prices that people on lower incomes and with little education can now easily afford them. Unlike seasoned travellers, they know little about foreign culture and customs.
"Most of the middle-class travellers I have worked with are educated, civilised and always well behaved.
"If we sell international tours for no less than 5,000 yuan, we will be able to weed out a lot of 'bad tourists'." She suggested China set minimum tour prices in law to end unfair competition and deceptive marketing.
Wang echoed Li's sentiments: "Those on a limited budget are usually rude and obsessed with taking advantages of others."
Tour guides say it is extremely hard to manage or "educate" the "bad" tourists. In the latest incident, the assault of the Thai flight attendant, the CNTA said it might also punish the tour guide travelling with them, but tour operators said this was unfair.
"If their parents failed to teach them good manners in all these years, how are we supposed to do it?" Li protested.
Travel experts also say that Chinese tourists tend to be unfairly tarred by the same brush as the mischief-makers even though many of the travellers behave impeccably.
"My mainland guests all turned out to be extremely polite and educated," said Liu Fong-yu, a lawyer who rents rooms at his home in Taipei to travellers on the popular online accommodation service, Airbnb.
"Once I took my guests to the Eslite bookstore, and they bought books by Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov.
"Two sisters who recently stayed with me chatted with me until 1am about the works of renowned Taiwanese writer and poet Chiang Hsun."
Retired engineer Shi Ming from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is a passionate traveller who tries to "observe and interact" with locals when touring. Despite her limited English, she made friends across 23 states during a tour of the United States in 2011.
During one flight she sat next to a native American woman.
"We chatted with the help of dictionaries and drawings," Shi said. "She shared her snacks and we exchanged life stories."
Li Jinglong, an assistant professor at the department of tourism management at Anhui University's School of Business, said: "Educating our tourists should be a priority for China. Otherwise, things will only get uglier."
China could start by encouraging its tourism industry to explore "education-based" tours, he said.
"In the US, Britain, Australia, and Taiwan, governments and NGOs have set up educational groups, for example in national parks, where visitors learn about nature and making a difference as a volunteer," Li said.
"In China, tourism is about making money.
"If we manage to teach Chinese travellers to respect and protect nature through such activities, they will become more civilised and responsible tourists wherever they go."
Other scholars, however, say courtesy begins at home. "We need to admit that Chinese people are rude abroad because they are rude at home," said Liu Simin, a researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Many Chinese tourists were new to travel and had not mastered the skills of appreciating other cultures, Liu said. Like China itself, they catapulted from near-isolation to embracing the world in double quick time.
"If you don't have the change, come to me," the veteran tour guide recalled telling them.
The mention of the fee caused a stir on the bus. Many were on their first overseas trip and grumbled that back home in China pay-to-use toilets cost only 0.5 yuan (HK$0.63). Several of the men decided not go to the loo. Instead, they walked to an open spot to relieve themselves.
Li shook her head and looked away - she had half-expected them to do so because it is common among first-time Chinese travellers.
But what happened next took even her by surprise: a well-dressed middle-aged man followed suit to pee in public.
"I was dumbfounded," said the tour guide of seven years. "This same person who refused to pay €0.7 had on the same trip spent thousands of euros on a Vacheron Constantin watch."
The incident captured all too acutely the conundrum host countries find themselves in: boorish Chinese tourists bringing them piles of cash but also mountains of problems. The visitors seem to have the means, but not the manners. Locals get upset, facilities get damaged, tempers are frayed, and in many cases other tourists turn tail when they know the Chinese are coming, causing a dent in earnings.
And their ranks keep growing. By November, more than 100 million mainland Chinese had travelled abroad this year, a record for China, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). For the whole of last year, 98.2 million went overseas. Asian destinations, including Hong Kong and Macau, continued to receive the bulk of the travellers - 85.4 million by November. Europe, their second most popular destination, hosted 3.4 million over the same period, while Africa, in third place, drew 2.7 million Chinese visitors.
Their burgeoning numbers mean bigger spending. The Chinese overtook Americans and Germans as the world's top-spending tourists in 2013, according to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, (UNWTO). While the Chinese spent US$128.6 billion on international travel, Americans spent US$104.7 billion and Germans US$91.4 billion. The latest UNWTO data shows the Chinese remain the biggest spenders this year.
While this side of the balance sheet to Chinese tourism is welcomed, destination countries also have had to cope with the ugly side of this particular travel boom. Last year, a 15-year-old Chinese tourist defaced a stone sculpture in a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple with graffiti, generating a stir worldwide and a backlash at home. Many Chinese cringed at the shame and embarrassment brought on them. The boy's parents later apologised.
In Hong Kong, tensions have risen against the Chinese tourists and spilled into furious name-calling. Anger reached boiling point earlier this year when a mainland couple allowed their two-year-old to defecate on a Hong Kong street. Mocking the mainlanders, a group of Hong Kong protesters sat on yellow plastic poos in a crowded mall.
Chinese tourists made international headlines yet again this month after four threw hot water and noodles at a Thai flight attendant. They were reportedly angry over their seating arrangements and the lack of receipts for their tickets. The CNTA promptly "blacklisted" the tourists from joining overseas tours offered by Chinese travel agencies.
Swamped by the avalanche of criticism against their citizens, the Chinese authorities are resorting to lecturing, cajoling and the law to change behaviour. The country's first tourism laws came into effect in October last year, tackling mostly domestic tourism infractions.
The authorities also published guidelines for travelling overseas, which state: "Tourists shall observe public order and respect social morality in tourism activities, respect local customs, cultural traditions and religious beliefs, care for tourism resources, protect the ecological environment, and abide by the norms of civilised tourist behaviour."
A month before that, the CNTA published an 64-page illustrated Guidebook for Civilised Tourism to educate the travelling public on social norms abroad, offering advice on topics from queue jumping to toilet use.
Even President Xi Jinping weighed in, urging his countrymen to behave overseas. "Do not leave water bottles everywhere. Do not damage coral reefs. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood," Xi advised during an official visit to the Maldives in September.
In the Indian Ocean island nation, whose economy relies heavily on tourism and which received 332,000 Chinese tourists last year, some luxury resorts last year stopped providing Chinese guests with hot water to stop them skipping meals in favour of cup noodles, triggering anger and calls for a boycott on China's social media.
"Sadly, Xi's speech has made no impact whatsoever on the tourists," said Jenny Wang, a Beijing-based Maldives travel agent. "The good ones are good, but the bad apples remain the same."
She added that many still did not tip, even though they had been advised to do so and told that service workers in the Maldives rely on tips to boost their meagre earnings.
Seasoned guides also point a finger at the cut-throat competition among travel agencies to sell tour packages. The low prices tend to attract lower-end customers who have not been exposed to the world through travel. While boorish behaviour broke all class barriers, those unused to travel tend were more likely to behave poorly, the agents said.
Li said that in recent years many mainland agencies would advertise tours at unrealistically low prices, sometimes barely covering the air tickets. To make money, tour guides would later be forced to collect extra fees from travellers, or take them on "shopping tours". Both practices have been banned by China's tourism authority.
On Ctrip.com, China's largest online travel agency, a six-day tour of Thailand from Shanghai was being sold for just 3,999 yuan (HK$5,000) last week. The package included a guide, meals, round-trip tickets and five nights' stay at "five-star hotels", according to its advertisement. A typical return flight from Shanghai to Bangkok would cost anything between 1600 and 2800 yuan.
"Travelling abroad is a luxury," said Li, who works for a top travel agency in Sichuan . "But the fact is we are selling our tours at such low prices that people on lower incomes and with little education can now easily afford them. Unlike seasoned travellers, they know little about foreign culture and customs.
"Most of the middle-class travellers I have worked with are educated, civilised and always well behaved.
"If we sell international tours for no less than 5,000 yuan, we will be able to weed out a lot of 'bad tourists'." She suggested China set minimum tour prices in law to end unfair competition and deceptive marketing.
Wang echoed Li's sentiments: "Those on a limited budget are usually rude and obsessed with taking advantages of others."
Tour guides say it is extremely hard to manage or "educate" the "bad" tourists. In the latest incident, the assault of the Thai flight attendant, the CNTA said it might also punish the tour guide travelling with them, but tour operators said this was unfair.
"If their parents failed to teach them good manners in all these years, how are we supposed to do it?" Li protested.
Travel experts also say that Chinese tourists tend to be unfairly tarred by the same brush as the mischief-makers even though many of the travellers behave impeccably.
"My mainland guests all turned out to be extremely polite and educated," said Liu Fong-yu, a lawyer who rents rooms at his home in Taipei to travellers on the popular online accommodation service, Airbnb.
"Once I took my guests to the Eslite bookstore, and they bought books by Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov.
"Two sisters who recently stayed with me chatted with me until 1am about the works of renowned Taiwanese writer and poet Chiang Hsun."
Retired engineer Shi Ming from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is a passionate traveller who tries to "observe and interact" with locals when touring. Despite her limited English, she made friends across 23 states during a tour of the United States in 2011.
During one flight she sat next to a native American woman.
"We chatted with the help of dictionaries and drawings," Shi said. "She shared her snacks and we exchanged life stories."
Li Jinglong, an assistant professor at the department of tourism management at Anhui University's School of Business, said: "Educating our tourists should be a priority for China. Otherwise, things will only get uglier."
China could start by encouraging its tourism industry to explore "education-based" tours, he said.
"In the US, Britain, Australia, and Taiwan, governments and NGOs have set up educational groups, for example in national parks, where visitors learn about nature and making a difference as a volunteer," Li said.
"In China, tourism is about making money.
"If we manage to teach Chinese travellers to respect and protect nature through such activities, they will become more civilised and responsible tourists wherever they go."
Other scholars, however, say courtesy begins at home. "We need to admit that Chinese people are rude abroad because they are rude at home," said Liu Simin, a researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Many Chinese tourists were new to travel and had not mastered the skills of appreciating other cultures, Liu said. Like China itself, they catapulted from near-isolation to embracing the world in double quick time.
Wednesday, 21 October 2015
HONG KONG: Tourist Killed After Refusing To Buy From Jewelery Shop In "Forced Shoping Tourism"
A Chinese tourist has died in Hong Kong a day after being beaten up during a so-called "forced shopping" tour.
Operators of such discounted tours try to recoup costs by pressuring tourists to buy goods at selected stores.
Police said the victim, 54, intervened when a fellow tourist got into a fight with a tour guide after refusing to buy anything at a jewellery shop.
At least four people have been arrested and the Hong Kong Tourist Board (HKTB) expressed regret over the incident.
"The HKTB has zero tolerance for any act that impacts the hospitable image of Hong Kong, particularly acts of violence," it said in a statement.
The victim, a male building contractor from north-east China, was found lying unconscious outside the shop in Kowloon on Monday morning.
He tried to mediate in a fight between two women - believed to be the tour leader and one of the tourists - before he and the female tourist were attacked by a group of men who dragged them onto the street and beat them, police said
The two women, aged 32 and 53, have been arrested, along with two men, one a 44-year-old Hong Kong resident and the other a 32-year-old mainlander. Police say they are still searching for two other suspects.
Growing resentment
On the mainland the man's death prompted calls for a boycott of travel to Hong Kong.
China has introduced measures aimed at stopping the practice of forced shopping, but they have had little effect.
Tensions between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese have been rising as the number of mainland visitors has increased.
The visitors have driven a tourism boom - but local residents blame mainlanders for pushing up prices.
They also resent what they see as mainlanders' coarse behaviour, such as eating on the subway and blocking pavements with oversized suitcases.
China's National Tourism Administration has urged Hong Kong authorities to protect mainland tourists' rights.
Operators of such discounted tours try to recoup costs by pressuring tourists to buy goods at selected stores.
Police said the victim, 54, intervened when a fellow tourist got into a fight with a tour guide after refusing to buy anything at a jewellery shop.
At least four people have been arrested and the Hong Kong Tourist Board (HKTB) expressed regret over the incident.
"The HKTB has zero tolerance for any act that impacts the hospitable image of Hong Kong, particularly acts of violence," it said in a statement.
The victim, a male building contractor from north-east China, was found lying unconscious outside the shop in Kowloon on Monday morning.
He tried to mediate in a fight between two women - believed to be the tour leader and one of the tourists - before he and the female tourist were attacked by a group of men who dragged them onto the street and beat them, police said
The two women, aged 32 and 53, have been arrested, along with two men, one a 44-year-old Hong Kong resident and the other a 32-year-old mainlander. Police say they are still searching for two other suspects.
Growing resentment
On the mainland the man's death prompted calls for a boycott of travel to Hong Kong.
China has introduced measures aimed at stopping the practice of forced shopping, but they have had little effect.
Tensions between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese have been rising as the number of mainland visitors has increased.
The visitors have driven a tourism boom - but local residents blame mainlanders for pushing up prices.
They also resent what they see as mainlanders' coarse behaviour, such as eating on the subway and blocking pavements with oversized suitcases.
China's National Tourism Administration has urged Hong Kong authorities to protect mainland tourists' rights.
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