As the report published by Ctrip showed, China tourists had strong willingness to travel in 2014. Over 99% of respondents would go traveling, and about half (51%) of them planned to travel 3 times and more. More tourists wished to travel more than once, compared with last year.
When will tourists choose to go for a trip this year? The inquiry found that paid leave and off-peak travel became mainstream in 2014, chosen by more than 80% of tourists, with a significant increase compared to 2013. But travel during the Spring Festival, the National Day or minor holidays was still a hot choice.
In respect of travel budget, 95% of tourists chose to increase or remained the same with last year. In terms of annual travel budget per person, about third of tourists planned to spend more than 10,000 yuan, and 1% of tourists had a budget of over 50,000 yuan.
What is the most important influencing factor of travel willingness? It’s the lack of vacation. Over 88% of the respondents chose “Time / holiday” as the vital factor. Next is the economic factor (income), chosen by half of the respondents, followed by “Travel security issue”.
The most influencing consumption factor of travel spending was housing (the cost of purchase and rent house), chosen by 56% polled. Other factors also included transportation (39%), social entertainment (28%), daily necessities (23%) and so on.
For the type of travel, domestic tourists chose self-guided tour mostly. Self-guided tour through travel agencies accounted for 42%, and 39% of tourists would choose totally self-guided tour. Only 19% of tourists preferred package tour according to the report.
In terms of transportation, the polled tourists would use combinations of different means, among which airplane, train and driving were three major choices. Other means including bus, cruise, bicycle and walking were also chosen.
In what way do the tourists make reservations and arrangement? The travel websites were the most used channel for information and reservation. 93% of participants said they would reserve online. The proportion of mobile client used increased tenfold to 39%, compared with last year.
What is the tourists’ preferred types of travel products? It’s found that tourists would choose multiple types of travel products, among which the top three are self-guided tour (74%), hotel (68%) and air ticket (62%). Car rental got 7% voted as a newly-developing business in recent years.
Among the planned travel destinations, Sanya, Lijiang and Jiuzhaigou were top three for inbound travel, while Thailand exceed Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan to become the hottest spot for outbound travel.
Most tourists thought positively of the change caused by Tourism Law. 67% of them chose “The itineraries are more normative”, followed by “No forced shopping, the overall cost of package tour is lower” and “The tour guides are more professional”. Also some participants opined that the law influenced little on self-guided tour.
For shopping item and items at own expense, three-in-ten chose “No need” and six-in-ten chose “It depends”; only 10% chose “Need”. Some respondents said, “There can be these items but the agency should make it clear, and no forced or implicit consumption.” and “We just don’t want optional items which are much more expensive than self-guided, and items like fooling, rip-off, high-priced shopping.”