Swiss research agency m1nd-set has published its latest insights on Chinese travel trends and shopper insights, which reveal significant shifts in destinations and key behavioural insights on Chinese travellers in duty free shops.

The report reveals Chinese outbound travel grew moderately over the past 12 months, with a 3.3% global increase, according to m1nd-set’s Business 1ntelligence Service (B1S), which includes traffic forecasts from IATA’s Direct Data Solutions forecasting tool.

Asia, which is the largest market for outbound Chinese travel with an 80% market share, experienced almost stagnant growth with an increase of only 0.3% in outbound travel in 2017. This was due mainly to political tensions with certain markets around the region, which resulted in a sharp decline (-30%) in travel to South Korea and Taiwan (-13%).

The slump in travel to South Korea was partly off-set by robust growth in outbound travel to destinations in Southern Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, which all witnessed double-digit growth rates in 2017. Europe also benefitted from strong growth in Chinese arrivals in 2017 (+18.5%), driven mainly by Russia, UK and Germany.

HEALTHIER INCREASE

In 2018, a healthier 11% increase in Chinese outbound travel will be driven by a recovery in Asia with 13% growth across the region, led by destinations such as Thailand (+25%), Japan (+15%) and Taiwan (+13.2%). South Korea will see moderate growth of 2.5% in 2018. Latin America will see the most significant increase in arrivals from China over the next 12 months with a 26% increase to South America and 20% to Central America and the Caribbean.

Europe will experience a decline (-0.4%) in Chinese arrivals over the next 12 months however. Most of the major airports will see a fall in inbound Chinese travellers, with the exception of Istanbul, Moscow, Paris and Rome. Istanbul will lead the regional growth over the next 12 months with an increase of over 22% in traffic from China. Moscow will also see double digit growth of over 15% while Chinese arrivals to Rome and Paris will grow 7% and 3% respectively.

The China report also reveals actionable insights about Chinese duty free shopping behaviour. Chinese travellers not only visit shops more and purchase more, they also plan their shopping more and are more responsive to marketing, staff interactions and communications touchpoints than any other nationalities.

According to the report, 87% of Chinese travellers buying in duty shops plan their purchases before international travel, compared to the global average of 47%. The Chinese also buy more; around 42% of Chinese travellers purchase in duty free shops, almost 20% higher than the global average (23%).

MARKETING MESSAGES

Chinese travellers are also more influenced by marketing messages and shop staff than other major nationalities.  Around seven out of 10 Chinese travellers are influenced by marketing, significantly more than the global average of 30%. In addition, 77% of Chinese duty free shoppers in duty free stores interact with shop assistants compared to just over half (54%) of global shoppers and 71% of all purchases by Chinese travellers are influenced to varying degrees by the sales staff, 12% more than the global average (59%).

m1nd-set’s Head of B1S and Senior Project Manager Pablo Saez commented: “The report reveals significant opportunities for pre-travel marketing to Chinese travellers as a means to increase conversion. Their tendency to plan their shopping more than most nationalities, combined with their sensitivity to marketing messages, means that there is a great deal of untapped potential for marketers to reach travellers from China while they are booking their travel.

“They are using the mobile phone more for researching and booking travel and geo-marketing possibilities with social media platforms such as WeChat will mean time and location-specific advertising will increase the effectiveness of mobile marketing campaigns in China.”