New survey showed that Chinese tourist numbers and holiday expenditure has seen a growth however, the shopping expenditure during overseas travel has dropped more than 17% than last year.
The average Chinese tourist spent about 6,705 yuan ($986) on shopping when travelling, down from 8,050 yuan in 2015. But, overall holiday spending — including on hotels and sightseeing — rose 3.5 percent to 20,317 yuan from 19,635 yuan, according to the survey of 2,000 travellers from the mainland.
This major change in the shopping habit of the tourists came as a blow to retailers from Parisian department stores to Japanese duty-free operators and Hong Kong jewellers. However, it is expected that wealthier Chinese tourists might indulge in other opportunities for leisure and entertainment operators in popular overseas destinations.
The survey by consultancy Oliver Wyman showed the trend.
“Businesses globally have to adjust their strategy to think about how to capture the new Chinese tourist dollar,” said Oliver Wyman’s Shanghai-based partner, Hunter Williams. “It’s less about the outlet mall now and more about the national park.”
Thanks to the booming $60 billion cross-border e-commerce market, foreign goods are easily accessible in mainland China.
Chinese outbound spending still ranks highest in the world. In 2016, travellers from the Asian country spent $261 billion, a fifth of the global total, up from $249.8 billion in 2015, according to the World Tourism Organization.
