COP28 ignores tourism

Dear reader,

A few days ago COP28 started in Dubai. Even though the tourism industry is responsible for 10% of jobs and GDP globally and also for about the same percentage of global pollution, no representatives of the tourism industry are among the main speakers during the event. There is a round-table about tourism and climate change organised by the University of Dubai and several European universities happening for half a day on the fringe of the event, and a 90 minutes event co-organised by the UNWTO and the Glasgow Declaration, but that’s about it. In the Topic of the Week of this week’s COTRI INTELLIGENCE edition the lack of serious engagement and adaptation to the coming challenges of the tourism industry is discussed in more detail.

Another example of ignorance has been provided by the major global economic publication, The Economist. The magazine published recently a 104 page special on The World ahead 2024. Among the many forecast texts, tourism, got just a third of a page. After lamenting under the headline “No escape from travel chaos” that the renowed “appetite for whizzing around the world” is met by shortages in air connections and bans on AirBnB accommodation in many cities, the last paragraph is devoted to China.

China, the journalist muses, could throw out a “wild card” if the flagging Chinese economy derails the recovery to 90% of the tourism spending level of 2019 in 2024 according to the WTTC prediction. The texts ends with the sentence: “That would be bad for businesses counting on Chinese demand. For other tourists, however, it might mean a less crowded return to globetrotting.”

This is a good example of several points. First, it shows the limited understanding of the structure of China’s wealth distribution and the fact that the Chinese travellers you will encounter especially outside Greater China and neighbouring countries are belonging to the affluent top of the society and will not be prevented from spending a few thousand dollars on a trip from a slowdown in China’s economy. Secondly, it borders on racism to identify Chinese travellers as being a nuisance to the rest of the tourists, a.k.a. “us”, crowding the places we visit. There is still a lot of communication to be done to get a more realistic picture of China’s outbound tourism in the world.

As mentioned above, in this week’s COTRI INTELLIGENCE edition Topic of the week we discuss in the light of the COP28 meeting the lack of a thorough reaction of the tourism industry towards the big challenges awaiting most business models in the not-so-far future. In the Deep Dive we look at how Social media marketing is changing in China in the post-pandemic era for the different demographic market segments.

Facts and Views provides updates on the development in the third quarter of 2023 based on the arrival data available now for most major Chinese outbound destinations.

This edition of COTRI INTELLIGENCE includes as usual the COTRI weekly Editorial, this text “China this week”, the News and the COTRI News in the free content part. For the Topic of the Week, the Deep Dive consulting and the Facts and Views, we invite you to consider a Premium or Premium Plus subscription and offer a special welcoming subscription for one month with a 59% discount here: https://cotri-intelligence.ghost.io/welcoming-offer.

In the News you will find as always selected news items about different aspects of the Chinese outbound market.

As always, all best wishes from Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt and the entire COTRI INTELLIGENCE team!