Macau seventh favorite destination for mainland tourists, survey says

2013-9-26

From：Macau Daily Times

Macau is the seventh favorite destination for Chinese travellers, according to a survey released by daodao.com, TripAdvisor’s customized Chinese brand.
Mainland tourists’ top destination continues to be the neighboring region of Hong Kong, followed by the island of Phuket in Thailand.
The survey indicates that the Chinese travel boom has benefited destinations in Southeast Asia, including countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Half of the fastest growing destinations for Chinese tourists lie in the tropical nations to China’s south. Only two are located outside of Asia, namely New York and Paris.
A report published by the International Business Times quotes Lily Cheng, Managing Director of TripAdvisor China, as saying that a growing number of regional and global destinations have captured a fair share of this burgeoning market.
“While Hong Kong and Macau continue to draw tens of millions of mainland tourists a year, given their unique roles as duty-free shopping havens supported by easy transport links, family-friendly attractions and onward air routes to other international destinations, we are definitely seeing a shift in the market,” she said.
According to Cheng, the survey indicates “mainland travelers have started to look further afield into destinations like Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea and beyond.”
Destinations like Phuket and Bangkok saw interest on daodao.com rise more than 250 percent this year, Taiwan was up 350 percent, and the South Korean island of Jeju rose 570 percent, after being included on the itinerary of China’s “first luxury cruise”.
The survey conducted by daodao.com compared searches between July-August 2012 and July-August this year. There was a 250 percent increase in visitors to its site over the same period, proving that Chinese are using the Internet more than ever to explore new destinations.
“This new generation of Chinese outbound travelers is making their own decisions about where to go, where to stay and what to do by doing their own research online, going beyond the old stereotype of big buses of group tourists,” Lily Cheng stressed. “These travelers are savvy, sophisticated and do make an effort to understand and respect the local culture by doing a lot of online research before their trip.”
Chinese are expected to spend USD117.6 billion this year in outbound tourism, and the outbound market could reach 94 million trips in 2013, up 15 percent year-on-year.

Copyright@Macau Daily Times