Tag Archives: China

Up to Jan 19, 2020, outbound travel bookings from China were 7.3% ahead compared to the equivalent period of last year, but a week later, they were 6.8% behind after travel restrictions were introduced owing to Coronavirus outbreak, according to ForwardKeys data. Bookings to China have declined from 4.5% ahead to 7.2% behind the previous year over the same time period. The epidemic has caused a substantial setback in flight bookings for the Chinese New Year period, 10th January – 6th February 2020.

FTAs from India’s top 10 markets increased at a CAGR of 5.5% during 2008–2018, reveals CAPA India. China’s rank improved to 7th in 2018 from 10th in 2017.  FTAs from Russia registered the highest CAGR of 11.2% during the last 10 years, followed by China (11.2%), Malaysia (10.7%) and Australia (9.0%). In 2018, Sri Lanka (16.5%) and c(14.0%) were the only two source markets (amongst the top 10) that saw double-digit year-on-year growth.

The percentage shares of top 15 source countries availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during November, 2019 were highest from UK (12.22%), followed by USA (10.75%), China (8.06%), Russian Fed (7.85%), Malaysia (5.71%), France (4.61%),Germany (4.60%), Australia (4.16%), Canada (3.85%), Thailand (3.25%), Italy (2.32%), Singapore (1.87%), Spain (1.64%), Vietnam (1.50%) and Israel (1.40%), reveals Ministry of Tourism.

In a bid to promote Kerala in the China Market, Kerala Tourism with a high-profile delegation, along with the travel trade partners from the state, participated in China International Travel Mart (CITM) 2019 at Kunming and also organised two roadshows in Shanghai and Beijing. Kadakamapally Surendran, Minister, Tourism, Kerala, said, “We are trying to ensure brand visibility in East Asian markets using innovative strategies.  China is an important emerging market for Kerala Tourism. In just two decades, it has become the world’s largest outbound travel market, with some 145 million Chinese travellers visiting abroad in 2017.” Apart from Japan, Kerala Tourism is also focusing on Singapore and Japan, and participated in ITB Asia 2019 in Singapore and Tourism Expo Japan, held in Osaka, Japan.  

India, with 221,000 cruise passengers and a growth of 28.1%in 2018 as compared to 2017, is ranked at sixth position in Asia, when it comes to number of cruise passengers, according to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). China topped the list with 2,357,000 passengers, despite a decline of 1.6% from 2017. It was followed by Taiwan with 391,000 passengers (+4.7%) and Singapore with 373,000 passengers (+39.9%). Japan ranked 4th with 266,000 passengers (+4.5%)  and Hong Kong ranked 5th with 250,000 (+8.6%).

In a bid to increase the tourist footfall from China, Kerala has become the first Indian state to partner with the China Ready programme, which has already been conducted in 48 countries. Kerala Tourism has joined hands with Welcome China, a government accredited initiative that works to help travel and tourism engage meaningfully with China. This is part of the state’s tourism promotion plans. In this regard, a destination audit from Chinese tourists’ perspective to ascertain the attractiveness of the destination has commenced in Alappuzha, Thekkady, Munnar and Kochi, which will go on till October 5. Kerala Tourism is also putting in efforts to attract more Chinese travellers to the state. Recently, a workshop for travel and tourism trade was held as part of designing a marketing strategy to attract the Chinese tourists. It was attended by 40 leading tour operators and hoteliers of the state. Kerala Tourism has reportedly provided ₹12 lakh for the audit, workshop and for providing inputs for the next one year. Source: Hindu Business Line

In the first half of 2019, Chinese arrivals to India recorded a Year-on-Year (YoY) increase of 21%, according to a report released by China Outbound Tourism Research Institute. The report also revealed that Chinese arrivals to India reached an all-time high at 282,195 in 2018. In the second half of 2018, the Year-on-Year increase reached 32%. Total arrivals from China to India in fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018 was 84,487, recording a share of 0.2%, as compared to number of Chinese outbound travellers to all destinations across the world in Q4 of 2018, which was 40,000,000

The domestic aviation market in India has registered the fastest growth for the fourth year in a row in 2018, according to a recent report by International Air Transport Association (IATA). The year-end aviation data analysis by IATA revealed, “The India domestic market recorded the fastest full-year domestic growth rate for the fourth year in a row (18.6 per cent), followed by China (11.7 per cent).” In fact, India recorded its 50th consecutive month of double-digit annual growth in October. Other than India and China, Russia (9 per cent), USA (5.1 per cent) and Brazil (4.8 per cent) were among the top five fastest growing domestic air travel markets. According to the IATA report, globally, revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose by 6.5 per cent in 2018, slower than the 8 per cent growth registered in 2017.  

The India domestic passenger load factor exceeded 90 per cent for the first time ever in February 2018, hitting an all-time high for the other global domestic markets, namely China, the US, Brazil, Russia, Japan and Australia. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA), the bigger picture is that the current load factor performance represents a significant turnaround from the early-2000s when India regularly posted the lowest domestic passenger load factor amongst its group of countries, even dipping below 50 per cent on occasion. The evolution and maturity of India’s domestic air transport market can be illustrated by comparing the experiences around the time of 9/11 with that of late 2014. In the former, domestic capacity continued to increase even as demand slumped, while in late-2014 Indian airlines slowed capacity growth to support the load factor even as demand was growing strongly. In part, this appears to reflect the increasing influence of competitive (market) pressures over time via a mix of policy, regulatory and industry developments. Such forces have instilled a greater focus on airlines to achieve the load factor levels needed to generate adequate returns for their investors.

India has steadily increased the number of overseas city pairs served by a non-stop service from the country over time, according to a recent study by International Air Transport Association (IATA). There are 304 such international pairs in 2018, up from around 230 ten years ago. In relative terms, the India market appears to have considerably less international city pairs served than either China or Russia. However, Indian travellers have ready access (via the geographic proximity) to the Middle East superconnector hubs – Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha – that China and Russia do not. This increases the size of the network significantly for Indian travellers, as well as making India more accessible for international visitors. As such, it may go some way to explaining the relatively lower number of international city pairs for India relative to China and Russia.