SG – Singapore Chinese mainland May Day travel trends are revealed by top travel service provider Trip.com Group, with significant domestic and international booking increases.
Before the epidemic, Chinese tourists abroad were one of the most important consumer segments driving worldwide tourism income. China’s tourism sector is back on track to expand and recover after three difficult years.
The popularity of the May Day holiday has grown along with a rapid rise in the number of people travelling both domestically and internationally.
Over the same time period in 2019, international flights during the holidays recovered to about 40%, and searches increased by more than 60%.
Compared to the period of time marked by the Chinese New Year (January 21–January 27). According to data from the Ctrip website, over the May Day vacation, flight reservations from the Chinese mainland to nations in Southeast Asia soared by 91%. Bookings for flights to Korea and Japan both rose by 120% and 204%, respectively. Bookings for long-haul flights to Europe have increased by more than 40%.
The top 10 most-booked international destinations for the May holiday were Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, and the United Kingdom, with nine out of ten searches made by Chinese mainland travellers to these destinations surpassing the 2019 level.
Many young people travelling in the post-2000 era were leaving the nation for the first time. On the Ctrip site, consumers between the ages of 18 and 23 most frequently ordered first-time trips to Bangkok, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, and Kuala Lumpur.
The May Day holiday has ushered in the first wave of outbound tourist growth this year, driving recovery and local service capabilities, according to Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group. Chinese travellers may soon look for destinations outside of APAC and resume long-haul travel to EMEA and the Americas as capacity continues to rise. To secure capacity and protect the pending travel demand seen from Chinese mainland customers, we continue to collaborate with international partners.
Chinese mainland cities are still putting a lot of effort into promoting tourism to increase domestic demand and consumption. A broad variety of gorgeous locations collaborated with Trip.com Group’s Ctrip platform to offer VIP services and unique activity packages to guests on May Day.
Bookings on the Ctrip platform for domestic hotels, flights, and scenic location tickets for the May Day holiday had surpassed the level from 2019 as of April 19.
Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing, Xi’an, Wuhan, and Shenzhen made up the top 10 cities.
More than 80,000 domestic flights were conducted over May Day this year, with the average daily level increasing by almost 15% compared to the same period in 2019. This is according to statistics from Ctrip’s FlightAi market analytics platform.
More and more consumers are choosing to travel over the holidays by escaping the city and enjoying the countryside. According to Ctrip statistics, on May Day, the total amount of orders for rural tours surged to 242% of what they were during the same time period in 2019 and the percentage of orders from travellers staying in the countryside for more than three days grew by 230%.
Trip.com Group’s Country Retreats had a 261% year-over-year growth in total order volume. For excursions of the countryside, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Hangzhou have emerged as the most energetic cities.
Most significantly, post-00s represented over 34% of rural trip orders on May 1 this year, surpassing post-90s and post-80s, and for the first time serving as the backbone of rural tourism.
Since the pandemic, digital consumer patterns have changed, and Trip.com Group is emphasising the importance of its user-centric, all-in-one platform and its distinctive content and product offers.
The “Super World Trip” livestream series was created by Trip.com Group with the goal of promoting short-haul travel to Chinese mainland consumers and boosting tourism-related goods in strategic locations.
With more than 20,000 lodging nights sold, the first livestream held in Thailand had a gross retail value of RMB 40 million. Tokyo and Hong Kong have also attempted to replicate this achievement, with GMV reaching RMB 23 million and RMB 30 million, respectively.
Chinese consumers have been unable to travel for a considerable amount of time, but it is evident that customers want to travel once more, according to Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group. Through a diversified approach to content marketing, we continue to digitalize and adapt to the changing needs of consumers to deliver excellent consumer choice.
Source: traveldailynews