A veteran travel industry professional said that young travelers from Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore visiting Beijing no longer need much help arranging their trips. They book their own flights and hotels, and many ethnic Chinese visitors speak the language. What they want is an affordable day tour covering major attractions such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the National Museum of China.
He stressed that products featuring traditional shopping stops attract virtually no interest, no matter how cheap they are.
Yet there is another side to the story. While shopping tours for inbound groups are losing their appeal, the long-awaited influx of foreign tourists is finally happening.
This summer, Europe endured a prolonged spell of extreme heat. From mid-June to mid-August alone, around 80 million Europeans experienced temperatures above 40°C. Some travelers changed their holiday plans at short notice, with China emerging as an alternative destination for escaping the heat.
Data released by Trip.com in late July showed that European countries accounted for 30% of the major source markets for inbound tourists to China during the summer holiday season. Bookings from Europe surged 275% year on year, while growth across key western European markets, including the UK, France and Germany, approached 150%.
HopeGoo, a platform under Tongcheng Travel, also reported that since July, flight bookings from European cities such as London and Madrid to China had each increased by more than 20% month on month.
However, the shopping business generated by this influx of tourists looks quite different from what many travel agencies had hoped for.
In the first half of this year, Shanghai Customs processed nearly three times as many departure tax refund applications as a year earlier, while the value of tax-refunded goods rose just 58%. The increase in the application numbers far outpaced growth in the value of purchases.
Before the pandemic, shopping stops on traditional inbound group tours were often packaged as sightseeing experiences. Tour guides would first take visitors to watch jade carving demonstrations and listen to explanations of the materials and cultural significance. Visitors would then be led into the sales area, where they had to remain until the designated departure time.
But the landscape has changed. Travelers can check reviews before departure, contact local service providers by email or social media, and use ChatGPT or Gemini to get a rough idea of product prices. The information gap once created by an unfamiliar environment is quickly erased by smartphones.
More importantly, foreign visitors are increasingly wary of the time costs associated with shopping. Browsing requires effort, bargaining can be a hassle, and turning down sales pitches is not always easy. Given the long journey to China, spending two or three hours buying souvenirs of uncertain provenance is becoming harder to justify.
The second consideration is travelers' budgets. With the cost of living remaining high and economic uncertainty weighing on household finances, tourists may be more selective about how they spend their money abroad. For visitors making a long-haul trip to China, shopping is competing with accommodation, dining and destination experiences for a share of their travel budget. Purchases that offer little perceived value may be among the first expenses to go.
