According to the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the three-day New Year's Day holiday, 135 million domestic tourists traveled across the country, an increase of 155.3% year-on-year, an increase of 9.4% over the same period in 2019 on a comparable basis, and a domestic tourism revenue of 79.73 billion yuan, an increase of 200.7% year-on-year and 5.6% over the same period in 2019.
From the above data, it can be seen that the tourism market will recover well in 2024. After a recent interview with a number of leading companies and industry analysts, the first financial reporter learned that the tourism market as a whole will continue to recover in 2024, and there should be further improvements in data. With the visa-free and large transportation recovery, the outbound travel market will heat up significantly in 2024. In terms of domestic travel, more cities will compete to get out of the circle, hoping to become "Internet celebrity tourist destinations" like Zibo and Harbin.
The recovery of outbound tourism has accelerated, and inbound tourism has ushered in business opportunities
Outbound travel is a relatively profitable sector in the entire tourism market, due to the impact of the epidemic, outbound travel was suspended for 3 years, and at the beginning of February 2023, outbound travel resumed, but compared with the domestic travel market in a "blowout" state, the recovery speed of outbound travel in 2023 is not fast.
"There are several factors here, such as visa and other procedures required for outbound travel, international transportation, overseas accommodation and Chinese ground services, which are more complex and expensive than domestic travel. The recovery of the outbound travel market in 2023 will be relatively slow due to the rising costs of various kinds, the return of overseas workers and the fact that some people do not plan to do tourism anymore after changing careers. Yang Wei, who is engaged in the business of picking up tour guides in Chinese in France, told the first financial reporter.
On January 1, 2024, the AIDA Modu departed from Shanghai to start its maiden voyage season, leading more than 3,000 guests from all over the country to Japan, South Korea and other popular cruise destinations in Northeast Asia. This inaugural voyage also started the journey of the outbound travel market in the new year.
As one of the tourists on this commercial maiden voyage, Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Spring and Autumn Tourism, told reporters that he gave a satisfactory "90 points" to the first commercial voyage of Aida Modu. "China's cruise operation and management has just started, but it has already seen enough care in the careful planning of cruise route design, personnel organization, room cleaning, catering arrangements and cultural performances. It is reported that in the future, Aida Modu will deploy cruise routes from China to Southeast Asian countries, provide guests with long, medium and short vacation options, and launch the Maritime Silk Road cruise route in a timely manner.
In addition to the recovery of cruise travel, there is also good news at the beginning of the new year on the visa policy. On January 2, according to CCTV News, China and Thailand will permanently exempt each other's citizens from March, which adds another major positive to the outbound travel market in 2024.
"Previously, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries have also launched a period of visa-free policies, and now Thailand's visa-free policy is conducive to the acceleration of the outbound travel market. We estimate that in 2024, more destination countries will provide policy support. After all, the first condition for outbound travel is the procedure, and when outbound travel first resumes in 2023, there will be a process for the recovery of many businesses, so the visa issuance speed in some countries was very slow at that time, and the time to queue for appointment and visa delivery was also very long. As more and more countries simplify their visa policies, the number of outbound tourists in 2024 is expected to increase significantly. Zhao Huanyan, the chief knowledge expert of Huamei, told the first financial reporter.
Many tourism companies have also seen this positive trend, so Ctrip, Tongcheng, Tuniu, Spring and Autumn, Zhongxin Travel, Fliggy, etc. are all increasing their weight in the outbound travel sector. For example, Spring and Autumn is actively organizing supply chain resources, actively exploring the development of destinations such as Central Asia and the procurement of high-end cruise resources in the Arctic and Antarctic on the route of the "Belt and Road", and actively exploring the development of destinations such as Central Asia and the procurement of high-end cruise resources in the Arctic and Antarctica to meet the differentiated outbound travel needs of more tourists.
While outbound travel is accelerating its recovery, inbound tourism is also optimistic in 2024.
Zhang Zhining, CEO of Reliable Tourism, believes that since November 2023, around the "inbound tourism" market, the policy side and the market side have played a set of intensive "combination punches", leaving a huge imagination space for the development of the inbound tourism market in 2024. According to the statistics of the National Immigration Administration, since December 1, 2023, when China implemented the unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from six countries, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia, as of December 31, 2023, a total of 214,000 people from the above six countries have come to China, an increase of 28.5% from the previous month, of which 118,000 people have entered China without a visa with ordinary passports, accounting for 55.1% of the total number of arrivals from the six countries in the same period. From the perspective of entry reasons, 91,000 people came to China for sightseeing, leisure and business activities among those who held ordinary passports and entered the country without a visa, accounting for 77.3%. I think the inbound tourism market in 2024 is worth looking forward to, although the growth rate may not be as fast as outbound tourism, but the policy side and the market side are making efforts. ”
According to data previously disclosed by Ctrip, it aims to increase the number of inbound tourists it serves by more than 150% in 2024 compared to 2019. In December 2023, Alipay announced that it had reached a partnership with Ctrip and Tuniu to launch a selection of travel itineraries and guides. The cooperation between payment platforms with more frequent use and travel platforms with complete supply chains will also help to break through the blockages in the inbound travel market in terms of product booking, mobile payment, etc., and improve the convenience of inbound travel.
At the same time, tourists will be more rational in their spending. Many consumers said that after the epidemic, in fact, the most important thing is to travel safely and cost-effectively, rather than blindly choosing low-cost tour groups.
There is an increase in the number of Internet celebrity cities, and the hot and cold destinations of domestic travel are uneven
Following the Zibo barbecue, Harbin has become a new Internet celebrity tourist city, and until now, the local area is still fermenting all kinds of tourist anecdotes of "small potato" tourists.
"Similar to Zibo, Harbin attracted the attention of consumers because of an online 'out of the circle' incident, and then relied on the support of relevant local departments, services and dissemination in place to quickly 'dominate the list' hot search. This is an effect peculiar to the Internet age. There are so many tourist destinations in the country, why do you have to go to this place? Presumably, in addition to the scenery and entertainment services themselves, it is also related to the support of local relevant departments and network marketing. Once there is an 'out of the circle' event, then the whole city will be immediately set on fire. Wei Changren, founder of Jinlv.com, told the first financial reporter that with the two "models" of Zibo and Harbin, there will be a number of tourist cities in 2024 to carry out 'out of the circle' marketing, and even specially plan IP. Wei Changren, founder of Jinlv.com, analyzed the first financial reporter.
Just recently, due to the popularity of "Flowers" and triggered the same check-in place of flowers, Shanghai's Yellow River Yellow Road, Peace Hotel, and International Hotel have attracted much attention, and the Peace Hotel has also launched flower suites and packages, even if the price is expensive, they have been robbed; and as the prototype of the hotel in the play, the Chinese New Year's Eve Restaurant has been sold out. For a time, it has caused a trend of "following the flowers to travel" in the near future.
However, it is not easy to create a "out of the circle" marketing case, and this kind of event needs to have many conditions such as reader thinking, grounding, and communication value, which can sometimes be encountered but not sought.
"According to the current situation, more cities will strive for such opportunities in 2024, and there will always be unexpected cities 'out of the circle'. Coupled with the fermentation of the Internet, we expect that there will be more and more such online celebrity tourism markets in 2024, but there will also be some problems, such as whether it can continue to be popular, whether it will cause trouble to local residents, and whether it will lead to some low-price wars or even excessive customer grabbing? But one thing is certain, that is, with the increase of online celebrity tourist destinations, domestic travel destinations in 2024 will be more uneven, such as Harbin and other out-of-the-circle cities will be very hot, while some non-popular cities will lose a certain source of tourists, because after all, the crowd of people traveling and the holiday time are about the same, and if you go here, you will naturally not go there. Wei Changren said.
Chen Gang, founder of Mafengwo, believes that 2023 will be a year of rapid recovery of the tourism industry, and 2024 will be a year of entering a new stage. "The younger generation will become the main force in the market, and the sense of experience and trendy gameplay are the consumption points of young people, in fact, the popularity of Harbin is also related to this. "In 2024, we will officially launch the 'Strategy Group' service, where young tourists can make friends, find friends, and build a travel community. We will also use the help of AI to upgrade the service of the 'Raider Group'. "
Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, publicly told the media that in 2023, the domestic tourism market will open high and accelerate its recovery, the inbound and outbound tourism supply chain will gradually recover, achieving the expected growth, and the tourism economy will maintain the expected growth in quantity and effective improvement in quality. With the "Super Golden Week" of the Spring Festival holiday in the Year of the Dragon, domestic tourism and national leisure in 2024 will enter a new stage of prosperity and development. It is estimated that in 2024, the number of domestic tourists and domestic tourism revenue will exceed 6 billion and 6 trillion yuan, respectively. "In the new year, while the domestic tourism market is improving its quality and expanding, the market will further sink, the demand will be structurally upgraded, and the supply will be optimized in integration. Lower-tier cities, central towns and villages are not only tourist destinations, but also tourist sources that cannot be ignored. Destination construction, project investment, and entrepreneurship and innovation will usher in a new upsurge of development. Tourism investment institutions and market players are increasingly recognizing the following concepts and putting them into practice: tourists define tourism, rather than tourism defines tourists, culture and tourism integrate new scenarios, hosts and guests share a new life, and digitalization has become an essential element of survival. "
(Yang Wei is a pseudonym in the article)