China Tourism Academy, Ctrip and Huayuan International Travel jointly issued a report on the trends of Chinese tourists in Europe in the first half of 2017.
Chinese tourist arrivals to Europe rose 65% YoY in the first half of the year, according to transaction data from Ctrip and Huayuan. Package tours increased 81% and in-destination package tours climbed 103%.
Package tours continued to be the major way of travel to Europe, preferred by 85% of the Chinese tourists. The remainder 15% of Chinese tourists chose individual travel, which was growing rapidly with a 26% rise year on year.
The report attributed the continuous growth of Chinese tourist arrivals to Europe to three factors: First, newly launched air routes between China and Europe have boosted the transportation capacity and saved the time spent on the journey; Second, European countries are setting up more and more visa centers in China to facilitate visa application process; Third, some European countries have relaxed their visa policies to Chinese tourists, with Serbia and Montenegro becoming the first countries to issue visa waivers to Chinese tourists.
Based on the robust performance of Chinese outbound tourism in the first six months, the report projected that Chinese tourist arrivals to Europe this year will reach 5.5 million. Europe is the third most popular destination for Chinese tourists, second only to Southeast Asia and East Asia.
The top 10 destination countries for the Chinese travelers were Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and the Czech Republic, according to the report. While Paris, Rome, Frankfurt, London, Moscow, Prague, Lisbon, Athens, Milan, and Barcelona were the top 10 destination cities.
More than half of the Chinese tourists in Europe in the first half of the year were over 50 years old, 19% of them were 30-50 years old, mostly traveling with family with a focus on products and services, and around 13% of them were 20-30 years old, a potential consumer group for the market. (Translated by Xenia)
