How is COVID-19 shaking the travel behaviour in China?
How is COVID-19 impact the tourism in China?
The first half of 2020 has finally gone - needless to say, it was a dreadful few months for the world, and we can’t wait to have a bright start to the second half of 2020.
While COVID-19 is slowing down in some parts of the world, including China, we have taken a closer look at how the pandemic affects consumer behaviour in China.
Before the pandemic, the Chinese outbound tourism market had been the world’s biggest market for seven years in a row. The number of overseas travel from China had drastically increased from 10.5m foreign trips in 2001 to 149.7m in 2018. Thanks to the blossom of the “new first-tier cities” such as Changchun and Shenyang, the demand for passport ownership in China is also expected to double to 20%.
But, COVID-19 is rocking the boat.
Domestic travel will be the trend again
According to the McKinsey & Company report conducted in May 2020, 36% of potential travellers in China said they would travel within their cities more frequently in the coming months. Despite the pandemic, people still look for excitement and entrainment, and the demand for leisure entrainment would be even more so, particularly after the lockdown period.
Search volume of ‘travel’ in china has increased steadily after the lift of lockdown.
While the consumer will play it safe to avoid travel overseas due to the COVID19 situation is still severe in most of the foreign countries, domestic travel inside China will play a key role in the coming 12 months, rising the importance of the domestic market.
Domestic destinations remains the most realistic choice for Chinese travelers
A clear trend is also indicated on Baidu Search Index, as the term ‘domestic travel’ (blue line in the chart below) has taken over the ‘Overseas Travel’ (green line) search index on Baidu after the pandemic.
Self-served travel will be on the up
Diving deeper into the Chinese travel trend in this light, car rental and road trips will be deemed as a safer option than rail or air transport. Guided tours, on the other hand, will be expected to see a significant drop as travellers will try to avoid big group travels in the future.
Chinese travelers prefer self-guided and self-drive trips over group tours
“Flea-market” trend in China
Another trend worth taking note of is the growth of the “flea-market” trend in China. The Chinese government announcement on the night market to boost the domestic economy through what they called 'Street Vendor Economy'. Key cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanjing, Qingdao all welcome the new policy. We see this would encourage brands to engage with the consumer through more down-to-earth/grass-root experiential activations. KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds are amongst the first to set up ‘food stall’ to provide an alternative dining experience to Chinese consumers in the post-COVID-19 era.
KFC set up stall to sell breakfast in key commercial districts in China
Pizza Hut set up mobile food stall in China
As a professional Chinese marketing agency in the UK, Comms8 knows the Chinese market deep and well. Contact us for any marketing related queries.