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Financial ill winds leave some others smooth

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-30 18:31

"It's time to travel overseas and go shopping in the US and Europe," says Zhu Hong, who works for a premier company in Beijing. "The US dollar and the euro are falling (against the yuan), so we can save a lot if we shop there now."

This, for some Chinese, is the other way to save when the global financial crisis is forcing people to adopt thrifty ways. There are always some people who feel differently from the majority during a crisis. So it's not surprising to see members of the middle class like Zhu choose to go against the trend.

People bitten by the travel bug are determined to travel despite the financial crisis. Tourism industry insiders say neither domestic nor overseas tour packages have suffered during the past month because of the crisis. On the contrary, more Chinese are expected travel to around the country.

Zhang Lingjie, deputy manager of the domestic tour department of China International Travel Service, says domestic tours have already risen 50 percent this month. This year, people seem to be releasing their long suppressed desire to travel irrespective of whether there's financial crisis or not.

The blizzards that whitewashed South and East China during Spring Festival, the Sichuan earthquake in May and the Beijing Olympic Games in August seem to have held them back from traveling earlier this year.

"The first eight months of the year saw a depressed domestic sector," Zhang says. Hence, they seem to be "liberated" now. They are making plans to travel overseas, too, with some of them being more eager than before.

Chang Hong, a PR executive with a Beijing-based IT company, says she plans to take her parents to Europe during Spring Festival because the continuous revaluation of the yuan has made the tour package cheaper and more attractive.

The November packages for Europe and Australia cost less than last year. The Australian package costs about 1,000 yuan ($147) less, according to online travel service Ctrip.com. "Many of my friends are talking about traveling together to do shopping abroad. All of them believe this is the best time to go," Chang says.

Chinese tourists regard Europe as the best place to buy luxury products. Last year, an average Chinese spent $1,359 on luxury goods in Europe, the highest across all destinations, according a survey conducted by Nielson Company and Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

With the yuan becoming stronger against the euro, Chinese tourists need to pay only about 80 percent of what they paid for a product last year, a tourism official said.

Christmas and Spring Festival could see more Chinese traveling abroad for shopping if the yuan's appreciation continues in the fourth quarter, says Guo Guang, a manager with Ctrip.com.

On the other hand, the revaluation of the yuan, the rise in hotel tariff at home and the global financial crisis have forced many foreign tourists to cut short their plans to visit China. In the first nine months of the year, the number of inbound tourists fell 5.94 percent year-on-year to 10.56 million, says the China National Tourism Administration.

The contrast should not surprise anybody, experts say. Stressing the difference in the consumer habits of the Chinese and Westerners, Dai Bin, deputy chief of China Tourism Academy, says: "Westerners are mostly used to credit consumption. Since most of them don't have much savings, the credit crunch has forced them to drop their travel plans."

"But Chinese people are used to saving for emergencies. The financial crisis could hamper the hotel business and make some tourists lose confidence in the economy, but people still can spend some money on travel," he says.

The PATA has forecast a dramatic rise in outbound tourists from the Chinese mainland, which will especially benefit the Asia-Pacific region including Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, in the next few years.

That should be music to the tourism industry's ears in these depressing days of downturn.