71% of Chinese surveyed say they want to visit Thailand: international study

Thailand hosted 39.8 million international visitors last year, with China accounting for nearly 11 million arrivals, said the newly released China Thailand Travel Sentiment Survey 2020, conducted in mid-April by C9 Hotelworks and Delivering Asia Communications (DAC), which focused on key demand factors in the country’s reopening of the tourism economy.
The Thai tourism, hotel and travel sector contributes between 12-15 per cent of GDP to Southeast Asia’s second largest economy, it said.
The survey of consumers in China’s first tier cities also concluded that 53 per cent of respondents would like to travel overseas before 2020 comes to an end.
The most popular months for trips abroad for the remainder of the year are August, October and December.
Using the China survey as a forecasting tool for the hotel industry, an interesting shift in a segment traditionally leveraged in the mass market is that 83 per cent of potential visitors would choose independent travel versus a group tour.
The top five booking channels for Chinese travellers to Thailand are Ctrip (61%), Fliggy (16%), hotel websites (9%), Booking.com (5%) and WeChat (5%).
Chinese respondents’ most popular holiday locations in order of popularity are Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and Pattaya, the survey showed. More than 75 per cent of demand was pinpointed to the top three destinations.
Commenting on the road to tourism recovery, C9 Hotelworks managing director Bill Barnett said: “We expect Thailand’s reopening to initially be dominated by the domestic storyline but move quickly into inter-regional travel punctuated by the outbound China sector, with travellers there ready and willing to visit the kingdom as demonstrated by the survey results.”
A quick indicator of airline activity on Flightradar24 clearly reflects how China’s considerable regional and low-cost airline sector has gotten back into the air.

While undoubtedly there will be a lingering global fear factor for travellers in the wake of the virus outbreak, Thailand’s favourable door-to-door flying time and vast network of approved routes to mainland China are positive indicators, the survey said.
Another is the appreciation of the Chinese yuan against the Thai baht. After reaching lows in 2019 Q3 and Q4 from an economic slowdown and trade war, the currency has continued its upward rise in 2020, which equates to greater value for Chinese tourists to Thailand.
Rounding out the survey results, DAC CEO David Johnson said the demographics of travellers from China were changing.
“The new Chinese traveller is younger, more independent and more digitally influenced than ever. Covid-19 has had a profound impact on travel consumer mindsets and this generation has a burning desire to experience the world and new digital strategies are needed to reach them,” he said.
The China Thailand Travel Sentiment Survey was led by DAC’s Shanghai office, which provides cutting edge digital services for the outbound China market into Asia.