COTRI, the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute just completed a webinar with participants from over 20 countries.Read on to find out more and sign up with COTRI for future events if the Chinese outbound market is of importance to you.
ITB Academy China Tourism Webinar discusses the crises in China and Europe
(Posted 17th September 2015)
Will the turbulent stock market in China and the refugee crisis in Europe stop Chinese from travelling abroad? “No, at least not in the long term” was the clear answer of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of COTRI during a webinar organised by the ITB Academy.
Entitled “The Second Wave of China’s Outbound Tourism: Keeping pace with changing customer behaviour” and drawing on research results of COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, participants from more than 20 countries watched the presentation by Prof. Arlt.
Chinese stocks rallied during the first half of the year, but are after the recent turbulence just back to the level they had at the beginning of 2015. Chinese travellers are not poorer than before, especially considering the higher valuation of the Chinese currency, and will in 2015 be responsible for 12% of the total number of international trips. It is more important, said Prof. Arlt, to understand the reasons why and how different Chinese travel market segments travel than to discuss small changes in currency exchange rates.
Participants of the webinar were eager to discuss the situation closer to home as well. TV coverage of the countries in Europe showing thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries moving north across the continent are certainly not helping to attract Chinese – or other – leisure tourists in the short run. If and when these problems are solved however, there will be no long-term effects. The recent events in Egypt where tourists were accidentally bombed is bound to have a comparably more negative impact on travel.
The webinar started with an introduction by Mr. David Ruetz, the head of ITB Berlin, the biggest tourism fair in the world. At the beginning of his presentation Prof. Arlt dedicated the webinar to the memory of Mr. Chen Mang, founder and CEO of CAISSA Co., who passed away in Hamburg on September 2nd.
A replay of the webinar can be watched free of charge on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIwZHjUYy5o
COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute is the world’s leading independent research institute for information, training, quality assessment, research, and consultancy relating to the Chinese outbound tourism market.
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