Tailor-made travel suits Chinese visitors to Hungary best

Around 256,000 Chinese visited Hungary last year, representing about 0.2% of all the 162 million trips originating in Mainland China.

Press release – These travellers used to come in two flavours: big package tour groups spilling out of coach buses for sightseeing, shopping and endless selfies on the one hand, and small groups of self-organised tourists, mostly younger, English-speaking people, who are more interested in the local culture and cuisine.

Recently, a third group has evolved: the “customized tour group”. These are small groups of Chinese travellers who still use a tour operator, but the itinerary is tailor-made according to their wishes.

Dr Andreas Reibring, Head of Research of the Swedish company Kairos reported earlier this month at the ITB China Fair in Shanghai that, according to a survey among 300 Chinese tour operators, “Customization” is the main trend in 2019.

Bryan Xiao, the CEO of QYER, the biggest Chinese travel portal noted that “75% of QYER users are stating that the main purpose of visit for them is to follow their personal interests”.

The reason for this change is explained by Professor Dr Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute in Hamburg/Germany:

“After a decade of growing outbound tourism, more and more Chinese have not only the money, but also the experience that enables them to clearly say what they want to do while travelling with their friends, family or colleagues.

Ctrip, largest online travel agency in China, which started already in 2016 offering customised tours with itineraries according to specific interests, forecasts a split of the market into three segments of roughly equal size: package tours, customised tours, individual travel. Jonathan Xie, General Manager of Ctrip Customised Travel Business, introduced a new joint report by Ctrip and COTRI during ITB China, which shows that, especially for the high-end market, highly personalised trips with top-quality services and the exclusive offer of services, resources and experiences that are high-quality, unique and niche, will be waked for. These may include helicopter tours, fine dining, attendance of special sporting events or health services. In 2018, the utilisation of businesses with such offers increased by 180%.