Several hotel brands missed a huge chance to attract international outbound Chinese tourists during the country’s Mid-Autumn Festival in October. This is one of the country’s top travel periods with many travelers taking an entire week off to head overseas.
According to DidaTravel, Western hotel brands, in particular, failed to focus on international outbound Chinese tourists during this period, a move that may have short- and long-term percussions.
“This Mid-Autumn Festival period has been a missed opportunity for most Western hotels as generally speaking they haven’t yet reactivated their sales and marketing efforts when it comes to Chinese outbound travelers,” Eric Zhuang, Chief Strategy Officer at DidaTravel, noted. “By doing so they are basically risking missing out on the recovery, which is already underway, allowing competitors to capture their market share.”
The China outbound tourism market is seen as the last piece of the puzzle for a global tourism recovery as it remains well off pre-pandemic levels. Eric believes the Mid-Autumn Festival could have provided an excellent opportunity for Western hotel brands to actively market themselves to Chinese audiences.
Beyond that, many hospitality operators are struggling to understand what needs to be done in order to reconnect with international outbound Chinese tourists.
“Reactivating China sales will require more than simply re-employing Chinese speaking sales and marketing teams,” Eric stated. “Technology plays an increasingly important role in reaching Chinese travelers via B2B2C sales distribution channels and such technology solutions have evolved significantly since 2019. This requires more than just switching back on your old-tech solutions and it is important to point out that the nature of the local sales market has changed too. Many B2B2C sellers are now selling in a very different way and thus require different types of content and pricing.”
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