Looking At Your Market Through Fresh Eyes

All of us try to look at our business from new angles, learn new lessons and create new opportunities, but this isn’t easy and so on a recent trip to #China with my EVP Paul Wilson , somewhat of a country hospitality expert, we decided to shake things up.

Paul has run some of the industry’s largest China roadshows and was one of the first people to give me a deep dive into Chinese culture. He is a passionate Sinophile. He understands the market, and perhaps most importantly, has some great relationships across the country.

After a protracted lockdown, we've been away from our #Chinese friends, colleagues, and partners for too long. We both felt detached from the culture and knew we needed to look at the middle kingdom anew. I decided to take some ‘fresh eyes’ with us. For all of them, it was their first-time to China and I was fascinated to see how they would react.

My three awesome travel companions were: Chayanisa Ruankaew (AOM), General Manager, Cross Vibe Chiang Mai Decem, Proudphicha Barry (YUI), Director of Global Sales Development, and Evan Burns , Country Manager – Indonesia.?

From our discussions with colleagues, travel agencies and other industry partners, the first key take-out was an important change in the market. There is a growing middle class in China and their individual spending power and expectations have evolved. This was described by Evan as;

“the shift to smaller groups and FIT is especially pronounced. All the focus is on high-quality, individual travelers with offerings in wellness and health tourism. There is a new emphasis on #sustainability, cultural #diversity, and human-centered experiences.”

AOM’s take on this was interesting:

“While the high-end earners and booming middle-class travelers are looking to spend on travel, lower inflation benefits all travelers as their money will retain its purchasing power over time, enabling them to take advantage of competitive prices and make their money go further.”

I found the other and more surprising insights were the changes for communicating with potential travelers and their buying habits brought about by generational changes. China is seeing the increased spending power of millennials, and the coming of age of Gen Z.?Both are digitally savvy and turn first to online media for information and purchasing. The top social media platform for tourism related information has now become #Xiaohongshu ahead of Mafengwo. WeChat has created an entire ecosystem within its platform, and with WeChat Pay, users can book international flights and hotels without leaving the app, making it feasible to conduct a full tourism marketing campaign just on #WeChat.

Yui took this communication aspect one important step further with this observation:

“Chinese travelers have embraced live streaming. Live streaming is very exciting place to be now, especially if you can work with Chinese media and KOLs with huge fan bases. You can save money on other marketing and spend more on wow quality by putting more focus on visual content to inspire travelers.”

The prime reason for my trip was to drum up business as China re-opens to international travel. As it turned out, my secondary reason of immersing my team into #Chinese culture was just as fruitful. I know they learnt a lot from their trip and gained some valuable insights to take back into their desks.?

For me, having a fresh #perspective on an important part of our business was invaluable in providing new insights and confirming old truths.

With the Chinese market now set to pick up through the 2nd half of the year, how are you adapting to the post-COVID Chinese traveler?

HT