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Three Reasons Destination Marketers are Obsessed with China

Date

May 21, 2018

Category

The State of the American Traveler

  • Chinese travelers have, by far, the largest travel budgets. The typical Chinese traveler would budget $6,362 for two weeks in America, or $454 per day, which far surpasses the closest competitor. The second biggest spending country was Australia at $5,355 for a two-week trip, or $383 per day.
  • One Chinese traveler’s economic impact equals three Canadians. The sheer difference in terms of expected budget for an American vacation between China and other countries is extraordinary.  China’s travel budget gap with other countries is most pronounced when we look at America’s largest contributor of international visitors, Canada.
  • Way outside the norm set by other countries, Chinese travelers would also plan to spend more on shopping than on lodging. The typical Chinese traveler would budget $1,888 for shopping and only $1,271 for lodging in hotels.  This won’t be music to the hotel revenue manager’s ears, as that represents a meager $91.78 per day.  Chinese travelers’ budget for shopping is almost as large as the entire trip budget of Canadian visitors.  It is more than double that of most other countries studied.  When it comes to retail spending around a destination, nobody compares.

Spending Expectations Tell the Story

Bratton noted that “the real key to understanding current traveler confidence may be seen in looking at their spending expectations.” Nowhere is the picture clearer than when we compare the proportion of travelers who expect to increase their travel budget in the next year. The chart below shows that in the two years prior to the recessionary crash, 42.4 percent of traveler said they expected to increase their leisure travel spending in the upcoming year. In the most recent two years, this average stands at only 32.1 percent, nearly a 25 percent decrease.

Source: The State of the International Traveler, 2018, Destination Analysts, Inc. A survey of over 800 likely international leisure travelers in each of 14 of America’s biggest feeder markets.

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