5 Charts Showing the Rise of Independent Chinese Travelers
Photo Credit: More Chinese travelers are choosing to take trips without tour guides or groups. Pictured is a Chinese couple visiting Yamashita Park in Japan. Flickr / Toshihiro Gamo
Skift Take
We're still many years away from seeing a tipping point when more Chinese travel independently than with tour groups. But this data should be a wake-up call to destinations and travel brands that a shift is already happening in some places and for some segments of the market.
Tour buses filled with Chinese travelers are becoming more commonplace in destinations around the world as more than 135 million Chinese are projected to travel abroad this year, making China the world's largest outbound travel market.
But in many destinations, Chinese who are going it alone and planning trips themselves are bucking that tour group trend, a sign that some segments of the outbound Chinese market are slowly maturing.
That's according to a report from China Luxury Advisors, a consultancy for luxury retail brands, and Fung Business Intelligence Centre (FBIC), a retail and tech data trends company, which found some 70 percent of Chinese outbound travelers plan to either make their own travel arrangements or buy a travel package but travel on their own for their next overseas trip (see Chart 2 below).
Both companies surveyed more than 800 mainland Chinese travelers online in May and June as part of the report. Respondents were ages 18 to 59 and had taken at least
