A trip to Xi'an was to see the terracotta warriors. But it also yielded some useful insights into the development of China’s tourism industry.
It cannot be said that international tourism promotion is one of China's strong points, despite the fact that the government actually explicitly understands its importance – in fact it is starting from a very low base. Elementary rules continue to be ignored – to take a simple example, the final editing of English guides and other documents is still done by people whose first language is not English and presumably the same applies to other languages. The result is the wasting of large sums of money on guides and promotional material that are literally incomprehensible. As it would, doubtless, be prohibitively expensive to have all such material translated by native English speakers nevertheless the employment of a few dozen native English speaking sub-editors, to do the final editing, would be one of the most cost effective investments the Chinese tourist authorities could make and pay for itself many times over.
Similarly arrival at even the most international Chinese airports, such as Shanghai or Beijing, remains a forbidding experience for tourists compared to what is possible. There are no maps or simple printed guides immediately available for visitors, and even getting into town is not clearly explained.
All this is a huge pity as not only is the standard of the tourist attractions evidently completely outstanding (Great Wall, Forbidden City, terracotta warriors!) but the basic standard of hotels is good in their different price ranges – the main problem being that as you go down in price European breakfasts deteriorate (but when did you last cook a Chinese one?). As I know I am far from unique in relishing Chinese lunch and dinner, but not being able to deal early in the morning with the very different Chinese breakfast, this is an issue. But cleanliness, good facilities, and security can be obtained at different points in the price range and, provided measures are taken to anticipate the breakfast issue, a holiday in China therefore need not be prohibitively expensive nor need it be confined to business traveller quality hotels.
The quality of information at some of the cultural treasure of China is also of very high quality – Shanghai museum, in partcular, must be one of the best in the world. The problem is that the whole is not bound together into a coherent leisure visitor experience. Marketing and promotion also remains very weak – there is nothing remotely matching the excellence of the ‘Incredible India’ promotional campaign.
Arriving in Xi’an was therefore a pleasant experience. Xi’an is destined to be one of the world’s most important tourist destinations – one on a level equivalent to Rome for example. Not only does it have the terracotta warriors but, as the capital of China for over a thousand years, it has in the more than 10km long intact city wall, Han dynasty tombs, and quite incredible art in the city museum cultural sites and tourist attractions that match those anywhere. The fact that it is the centre of China’s satellite control system, and was previously a city dominated by military industry, might make the Chinese authorities nervous about opening it up to the scale of tourism that is possible but no signs of this were seen on this visit.
Given the problems already described for Shanghai and Beijing imagine the pleasure, both personal and in terms of professional interest, in immediately being handed a city map and guide on exiting from the baggage claim. Clear, succinct and in comprehensible English whoever prepared it deserves high marks. It immediately made the city more comprehensible for the visitor. A bit of investigation showed there to be a reasonable range of hotels at different points in the price spectrum with the breakfast problem being reasonably solved quite far down the price range.
Of course very many detailed problems remained in some areas of the city. The presentation of the terracotta warriors themselves was on a high level but the huge tourist market after leaving the site, selling completely trashy souvenirs, is a disgrace to one of the most important cultural sites in the world, and therefore to the national dignity of China, and should be demolished. But someone in Xi’an was getting their act together to begin to present the city as a coherent visitor experience. Given the incredible quality of the product (who wouldn’t want to work with one of the greatest cultural centres in the world?) my professional mouth simply watered at the thought of working out a coherent promotional strategy for Xi’an! But clear progress is being made and on the basis of this visit cities such as Beijing and Shanghai would be well advised to draw some lessons from what is beginning to happen in Xi’an
Showing posts with label Tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Tourism resists the international recession
Highly interesting figures have been produced on the strong performance of world tourism in the early part of 2008 from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) despite the overall international economic slowdown. http://www.unwto.org/media/news/en/press_det.php?id=2532&idioma=E
These figures are rooted in the well established trend that as personal incomes rise leisure services, of which tourism is a major part, are one of the few sectors of expenditure on which customers spend not only more in absolute terms but an increasing proportion of their income - clothing, health and education are others (although in many countries the latter two are in large part provided by the state).
Promotion of tourism, and suitable physical infrastructure for tourism, therefore has to be an increasing part of county and city economic programmes. However promotion of many tourism in a number of countries remains amateurish -an exception among emerging economies is India's 'Incredible India' campaign which is of extremely high quality. China in contrast continues to drastically underperform in professionalism of tourism promotion and this has doubtless contributed to lower than anticipated visitor numbers to Beijing for the Olympic Games.
World tourism rose by around 5 per cent in the first four months of 2008 compared to the same period in the previous year - one per cent above the long term trend. This was despite the pressures to slowdown in the world economy as a whole. According to UNWTO:
'All sub-regions posted positive results in the first months of the year. Growth was fastest in the Middle East, North-East and South Asia, and Central and South America. North-America is on track for a clearly positive year thanks to the strong inbound travel to the USA, while arrivals to the Caribbean started to rebound well on last year’s stagnant results. Growth was more modest in Europe, with best performances coming from Southern and Mediterranean destinations.A variety of destination countries all around the globe reported double-digit growth rates in the first three to five months of 2008, among which in Asia and the Pacific: China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Macao (China), Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Fiji, India and Nepal; in the Americas: the USA, Cuba, Jamaica, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Chile, Peru and Uruguay; in Europe: Sweden, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Israel, Malta, Montenegro and Turkey; and in Africa and the Middle East: Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco.
'The anticipated softening of international tourism growth in 2008, yet still clearly at a positive level, follows four historically strong years. Between 2004 and 2007 international tourism grew at an extraordinary above average rate of 7 per cent a year, boosted by a buoyant world economy and pent-up demand after the challenges in 2001-2003... though consumer confidence indices show an increasing degree of uncertainty, international tourism has proven to be resilient in similar circumstances in the past and able to cope with various types of shocks, including security threats, geopolitical tensions or natural and man-made crisis.Accounting for these factors, coupled with a slower but still positive economic growth, international tourism is as yet expected to keep growing at a solid pace in the mid-term, broadly in line with UNWTO’s Tourism 2020 Vision forecast long-term growth rate of about 4 per cent.'
Within that framework, as would be expected the strongest tourism growth involves emerging market economies - although the top spenders in absolute terms remain the US, Germany, France and the UK. China overtook Japan and Russia overtook South Korea to rank ninth. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/12da54a2-49e4-11dd-891a-000077b07658.html
The UNWTO notes:
http://www.unwto.org/media/news/en/press_det.php?id=2462&idioma=E
'International tourism in emerging & developing markets has grown at an average rate of 6-8 per cent over the past decade. Twice the rate of industrialized countries.
'Tourism is a crucial contributor to these countries’ income - up to 70 per cent for the world’s poorest countries.
Development financing from global Trade; Poverty Alleviation and Climate Response should recognize the long term potential of tourism as a sustainable growth engine.
'With international travellers projected to almost double by 2020, the most significant increases are expected to take place in markets like China, India and destinations in South-East Asia. The Gulf States and emerging Eastern Europe complete this picture, followed by the Latin American and finally African markets.Many of these are becoming important outbound markets, backed by growing middle classes on the one hand, and liberalising policies promoting mobility on the other. Chinese tourists already spent about US$ 30 billion abroad in 2007, according to UNWTO figures.The domestic travel potential of emerging markets – in 2006 China registered 1.6 billion trips and India 461 million - is a further proof of their long term importance for international tourism.Between 1996 and 2006, international tourism in developing countries expanded by 6 per cent as a whole, by 9 per cent for Least Developed Countries, and 8 per cent for other low and lower-middle income economies. ' http://www.unwto.org/media/news/en/press_det.php?id=2462&idioma=E
These figures are rooted in the well established trend that as personal incomes rise leisure services, of which tourism is a major part, are one of the few sectors of expenditure on which customers spend not only more in absolute terms but an increasing proportion of their income - clothing, health and education are others (although in many countries the latter two are in large part provided by the state).
Promotion of tourism, and suitable physical infrastructure for tourism, therefore has to be an increasing part of county and city economic programmes. However promotion of many tourism in a number of countries remains amateurish -an exception among emerging economies is India's 'Incredible India' campaign which is of extremely high quality. China in contrast continues to drastically underperform in professionalism of tourism promotion and this has doubtless contributed to lower than anticipated visitor numbers to Beijing for the Olympic Games.
World tourism rose by around 5 per cent in the first four months of 2008 compared to the same period in the previous year - one per cent above the long term trend. This was despite the pressures to slowdown in the world economy as a whole. According to UNWTO:
'All sub-regions posted positive results in the first months of the year. Growth was fastest in the Middle East, North-East and South Asia, and Central and South America. North-America is on track for a clearly positive year thanks to the strong inbound travel to the USA, while arrivals to the Caribbean started to rebound well on last year’s stagnant results. Growth was more modest in Europe, with best performances coming from Southern and Mediterranean destinations.A variety of destination countries all around the globe reported double-digit growth rates in the first three to five months of 2008, among which in Asia and the Pacific: China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Macao (China), Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Fiji, India and Nepal; in the Americas: the USA, Cuba, Jamaica, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Chile, Peru and Uruguay; in Europe: Sweden, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Israel, Malta, Montenegro and Turkey; and in Africa and the Middle East: Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco.
'The anticipated softening of international tourism growth in 2008, yet still clearly at a positive level, follows four historically strong years. Between 2004 and 2007 international tourism grew at an extraordinary above average rate of 7 per cent a year, boosted by a buoyant world economy and pent-up demand after the challenges in 2001-2003... though consumer confidence indices show an increasing degree of uncertainty, international tourism has proven to be resilient in similar circumstances in the past and able to cope with various types of shocks, including security threats, geopolitical tensions or natural and man-made crisis.Accounting for these factors, coupled with a slower but still positive economic growth, international tourism is as yet expected to keep growing at a solid pace in the mid-term, broadly in line with UNWTO’s Tourism 2020 Vision forecast long-term growth rate of about 4 per cent.'
Within that framework, as would be expected the strongest tourism growth involves emerging market economies - although the top spenders in absolute terms remain the US, Germany, France and the UK. China overtook Japan and Russia overtook South Korea to rank ninth. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/12da54a2-49e4-11dd-891a-000077b07658.html
The UNWTO notes:
http://www.unwto.org/media/news/en/press_det.php?id=2462&idioma=E
'International tourism in emerging & developing markets has grown at an average rate of 6-8 per cent over the past decade. Twice the rate of industrialized countries.
'Tourism is a crucial contributor to these countries’ income - up to 70 per cent for the world’s poorest countries.
Development financing from global Trade; Poverty Alleviation and Climate Response should recognize the long term potential of tourism as a sustainable growth engine.
'With international travellers projected to almost double by 2020, the most significant increases are expected to take place in markets like China, India and destinations in South-East Asia. The Gulf States and emerging Eastern Europe complete this picture, followed by the Latin American and finally African markets.Many of these are becoming important outbound markets, backed by growing middle classes on the one hand, and liberalising policies promoting mobility on the other. Chinese tourists already spent about US$ 30 billion abroad in 2007, according to UNWTO figures.The domestic travel potential of emerging markets – in 2006 China registered 1.6 billion trips and India 461 million - is a further proof of their long term importance for international tourism.Between 1996 and 2006, international tourism in developing countries expanded by 6 per cent as a whole, by 9 per cent for Least Developed Countries, and 8 per cent for other low and lower-middle income economies. ' http://www.unwto.org/media/news/en/press_det.php?id=2462&idioma=E
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