The cultural cliches the travel industry uses for Chinese tourists
Photo Credit: Somewhere in here, the travel industry sees a cliche. Chinese tourists at the pyramids in Egypt. Flickr.com / Bob Gaffney
Skift Take
Our "favorite" cliche is "Chinese don’t really plan their trips" and "Chinese eat quickly."
It starts out well, or well-meaning at least. Chinese outbound tourism is the fastest and biggest growing sector in travel, as outbound tourists rose to 70.3 million in 2011, and are expected to rise to 82 million this year, up 17 percent. And everyone wants these hordes of Chinese travelers spending money, especially the recession and debt crisis beset European countries.
» Get your daily dose of Skift: subscribe to our newsletter, RSS, Twitter or Facebook.
From hotels, airports, malls, and retailers hiring Manadarin speaking concierge services, to countries easing visa norms and doing joint marketing agreements with China, the efforts run the gamut. And most of the time, in the name of being sensitive to the Chinese cultural needs, some tourism organizations and companies resort to cultural shorthands, or cliches, while dealing with the guests. For instance, Switzerland, a sophisticated tourism marketer as far as countries go, is in a Ch
