China Tourism News: Analysis of the development of the tourism industry in the first half of 2008

2008 is a year of celebration for China, but it is also accompanied by unfortunate factors, these fortunate and unfortunate factors affect the development of China's tourism industry. By hosting the Beijing Olympic Games, China will convey to the world the messages of "Safe China", "Friendly China" and "Civilized China", which are conducive to the development of the tourism industry, and will significantly This will greatly spread China's national culture and brand, thus boosting the development of the tourism industry. However, the implementation of the Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees and the first cancellation of the May Day Golden Week led to the reorganization of the tourism market pattern. The occurrence of these major events has had varying degrees of impact on tourism development trends, making the development of China's tourism industry move forward in twists and turns. The Beijing Greenview Planning and Design Institute released an analysis of the development of the tourism industry in the first half of 2008 and a chronology of events in China Tourism News, so let's share it together and record the march of tourism in China in words.

One, China's first half of the overall analysis of tourism development

Green Dimension View that China's first half of the numerous disasters occurred, the development of China's tourism industry has also caused a certain impact, as follows:

1.1 Inbound Tourism Influence

In the first half of this year, China's inbound tourism number of 64,913,700 people, an increase of 2.44%. Among them, the number of foreigners traveling inbound amounted to 12,640,527,000, an increase of 4.34% year-on-year. The country***realized foreign exchange earnings from tourism of 20.232 billion U.S. dollars, up 2.12 percent year-on-year.

So, the impact of the disaster event on China's inbound tourism is not very big, and the negative impact brought by it can hardly hide the good momentum of China's rapid growth in inbound tourism, but the growth rate has slowed down compared with that of last year.

1.2 Domestic Tourism Impact

The rapid growth momentum of China's domestic tourism industry has been hit by the impact of the disaster. From the statistics of some provinces in the first quarter, the year-on-year growth rate of domestic tourism in the southern provinces and cities seriously affected by the snowstorms declined to varying degrees, while the unaffected northern provinces and cities maintained high growth.

1.3 Impact of Outbound Tourism

Disaster events boosted outbound tourism while having an impact on inbound and domestic tourism. from January to April 2008, the trend of rapid growth was still maintained, except for February which was affected by bad weather factors that led to year-on-year decline in the number of mainland arrivals. There was a new breakthrough in Taiwan tourism, as the Taiwan authorities opened up travel to Taiwan for mainland citizens. With the inaugural tour of mainland travelers to Taiwan on July 4, Greentech expects Taiwan tours in the third quarter to become another bright spot in the outbound tourism market. China's citizens to the United States to travel to the first group with the June 17 day from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, the first group **** there are 250 tourists, which marks the official launch of China's citizens to the United States team travel.

Overall, 2008 1, 2 quarter data show that the market pattern of outbound tourism remains stable. 3 quarter, with the "Mid-Autumn Festival" holiday coming, to Hong Kong and Macao as the destination of the short-haul outbound tourism market will continue to heat up. Taiwan and the U.S. will be another popular destination in September and October.

Two, China's economic development form the impact of tourism

Levi Creative View that the tourism industry is very strong correlation, so the factors affecting the development of tourism is also multi-faceted. Tourism and high consumption industry, the domestic economic development situation, the impact of tourism is very large, mainly in the following aspects:

2.1 The impact of rising prices on tourism

2.2.1 The reason for price increases

Since May 2007, China's total price level has been a relatively large increase; starting in August, the year-on-year rate of increase in consumer prices For five consecutive months exceeded 6%. In December 2007, consumer prices rose 6.5% year-on-year, up 1% from a year earlier, the reasons for the price rise are manifold:

1. Rapid growth of urban and rural residents' incomes

In the first half of this year, the national average wages of urban on-the-job workers and farmers' incomes have increased to varying degrees. The rise in labor wages coupled with the expansion of the coverage of the social security system, both directly raise the cost of enterprises and product costs, but also improve the consumption capacity of urban and rural residents, from both sides of the promotion of price increases.

2. Food prices, especially pork prices rose more

Pork prices rose is the total push of this national price increases, the rise in the price of pig head, promote the related by-product industry prices, such as beef, mutton, poultry, eggs, etc., to further affect the total level of consumer prices rose.

3. Social demand pull

China's economy continues to grow at a high rate, the GDP growth rate has been more than 10% for five consecutive years, the contradiction between the rapid growth of investment in fixed assets, excessive credit investment and foreign trade surplus is relatively prominent, the funds are too abundant, pulling the price rise.

4. The impact of international market prices

China's oil, iron ore, soybeans, edible vegetable oil and other important raw materials are highly dependent on foreign countries, the international market prices rose sharply on China's great impact. In the past four years, the international market price of crude oil rose nearly two times, the price of these basic products, increasing the production costs of domestic enterprises to promote the price of related products.

5. Enterprise costs to promote

Some of the cost of resource products in addition to the impact of the substantial increase in prices on the international market, the enterprise environmental protection costs, increased capital costs, rising wages, have driven the increase in costs, which in turn promote the price of goods and services.

6. Resource price and service price reforms to promote the price of related products

The country carries out the tax reform process to encourage the rational development and utilization of resources. Resource prices on service prices have obvious conductivity, service prices in about half of the increase in prices from the transmission of resource prices, therefore, resource prices will inevitably lead to the overall rise in service prices, so that the potential upward pressure on public **** transportation and other service prices to be released.

2.2.2 Rising prices on tourism impact

The impact of rising prices on tourism is multifaceted, manifested in:

1. Scenic area tickets rose

In recent years, domestic scenic area ticket prices rose, the major famous tourist attractions are in the price hike, and some even boosted more than 100%. Ticket prices are high, and China's national economic development and rising prices are inseparable.

2. Transportation expenses generally rise

Because of rising prices, tourism in the six elements of the "line" has also been affected to a certain extent, the increase in fuel costs, so that travelers in the transportation expenditure has increased to a certain extent.

3. Shopping consumption increased

Price increases directly lead to an increase in tourist shopping expenses, a variety of tourist souvenirs, raw materials, handmade and so on, the increase in the price of tourism commodities in general.

4. Other aspects of the impact

Price increases also have an impact on other elements related to tourism, such as food, housing, entertainment and so on. Rising prices have led to an increase in the price of hotel accommodation, food and drink, which indirectly affects the development of tourism.

2.2 The Impact of RMB Appreciation on Tourism

The impact of RMB appreciation on China's tourism is multifaceted, which is mainly manifested in the outbound and inbound tours, and has little impact on the domestic tours.

2.2.1 Renminbi appreciation hot fire outbound tourism

1. Increase outbound passenger flow

Exchange rate appreciation will have a significant impact on outbound tourism through the income effect, the yuan is increasingly valuable, outbound travelers will continue to increase. In recent years, the residents of outbound tourism tendency to increase, outbound scale is expanding, the appreciation of the RMB in which plays an extremely important role. Appreciation of the yuan, on the one hand, an increase of unplanned outbound travelers, on the other hand, part of the original plan in the domestic tourism of the crowd to travel abroad, so that outbound tourism is becoming increasingly popular.

2. A large amount of idle capital outflow

The increase in outbound travelers, directly leading to increased tourism spending, making a large amount of domestic idle capital output. The growth of outbound tourism has exacerbated the tourism balance of payments imbalance.

3. Impact on domestic tourism

The increase in outbound travelers may have an impact on the reception of domestic hotels and scenic spots, but the impact is relatively small. At the same time, as some domestic tourists turn to international tourism, it will also have an impact on the domestic tourism market, but the impact will be small.

2.2.2 RMB appreciation suppresses inbound tourism

1. Suppresses the growth rate of inbound passenger flow

The appreciation of RMB makes some travelers who plan to visit China change their travel plans and choose other places, and inbound passenger flow will be affected. However, as the prices of Chinese tourism products and services are very cheap globally, even if the RMB appreciates, the number of inbound travelers will not be significantly reduced due to the price effect on the already cheap Chinese tourism. Meanwhile, the hosting of the Olympic Games will greatly enhance China's international popularity and attract more foreign outbound tourists, so the appreciation of the RMB will have little impact on China's inbound tourism in the long run, but it will inhibit the growth rate of inbound tourism to a certain extent.

2. Reducing the operating profit of travel agencies

The appreciation of RMB directly reduces the operating profit of international travel agencies in receiving overseas tourists, which, in the short term, poses a serious challenge to the competitiveness of international travel agencies and the employment of practitioners. According to the survey, the international travel agencies to receive overseas tourists from the original tour fee of 110-120 U.S. dollars per person, down to 80-90 U.S. dollars; per capita consumption of 250-300 U.S. dollars per person, down to 200-250 U.S. dollars; operating profit from the original per capita tourists, down to 200-250 U.S. dollars. The per capita comprehensive consumption has dropped from 250-300 US dollars to 200-250 US dollars now; the operating profit has dropped from 9-10 US dollars per capita to 5-6 US dollars now.

3. Reduce the scenic area foreign exchange income

By the impact of the appreciation of the yuan, foreign tourists carry a variety of foreign currencies, converted into yuan in the country than the original reduction in the exchange rate directly to the foreign tourists brought the exchange rate adjusted exchange losses. Foreign tourists in order to circumvent the adverse effects of rising prices and exchange rate changes, will minimize the leisure, shopping and other consumption in tourist scenic areas, which will reduce the scenic spots and even the country's tourism foreign exchange earnings.

2.3 real estate market downturn on the impact of tourism

The real estate market downturn does not seem to have an impact on tourism, but look deeper into its internal correlation, it is not difficult to find: the real estate market downturn on the development of China's tourism has a positive role in promoting. As real estate prices remain high, and in a sustained downturn, many buyers stop buying homes, the price of the wait-and-see attitude, which makes part of the hands of the people have a surplus of cash, for tourism consumption provides the necessary conditions. Because most of the buyers are young people, they know how to enjoy life, so the hands of the cash but no intention to buy a house, some people will transfer the cash into foreign travel or domestic tourism, to a certain extent, activate and promote the development of China's tourism market.

Three, China's major events on the impact of tourism

3.1 The Olympic Games on tourism

Greenview believes that when it comes to the major events of 2008, we can not fail to mention the Olympic Games. Although the first half of the year has not yet opened, but the preparation of the seven-year-long Olympic Games on the development and direction of the tourism industry has had a profound and lasting impact.

3.2 Inbound Tourism Slows Down, Tourism to Olympic Cities Rises

The impact of the Olympics is divided into three stages: pre-Olympics, Olympics, and post-Olympics. In comparison, the impact of the pre-Olympics for China's tourism industry is not the most prominent, it is not compared to the Olympic Games during the athletes, media workers, spectators and related persons of the peak of the entry and tourism boom, but also not compared to the Olympic Games due to the return of the hotel prices, the relaxation of immigration policy brought about by the high-speed development of tourism, but the pre-Olympics for the tourism industry's impact is long-lasting and far-reaching.

The pre-Olympic phase began in July 2001, when China's bid to host the Olympics was successful, and lasted until July 20, 2008, when it officially entered Olympic time. Up to seven years of Olympic preparation time, is China to the world gradually show their own stage, the preparation of the Olympic Games subconsciously affect all aspects of China's tourism industry, this paper mainly analyzes the first half of 2008 Olympic Games on the development of domestic tourism.

In the first half of 2008, with the heating up of China's Olympic Games, accompanied by the cooling down of China's inbound tourism. As analyzed in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel: "Sports people may be excited to travel to China for the Olympics this year, but for many people China has lost its charm because of the Games. People interested in Chinese culture would rather wait until after the Olympics to travel to China." German travel agency sources also said that the first half of the year saw a significant shrinkage of China route tours.

In terms of per capita spending, there has been no more comprehensive data analysis so far, but from most reports we have learned that a lot of provinces and cities in the region have reflected an increase in per capita spending on tourism this year compared with last year.

3.3 Comparative analysis of the three small holidays and the May Day Golden Week

Experts analyzed that the first half of 2008 has experienced three small holidays **** the total number of tourists in total and the May Day Golden Week in 2007 in the number of people basically the same. In terms of the overall travel situation, "May Day" in the three long vacation in the largest number of travelers, the Dragon Boat Festival and Qingming the overall travel situation is similar to the "May Day" more than 70% of the number of travelers. Ctrip's statistics show that short-distance, Qingming period of the number of trips than the usual weekend three times, "May Day" during the weekend than the usual five times, the Dragon Boat Festival than the usual weekend four times more.

Because the weather during May Day is most suitable for traveling, and most people still inherit the idea of traveling during the May Day Golden Week. The slightly lower number of travelers on the other two long holidays compared with May Day is closely related to the time of year in which they are held, the concept of traditional festivals and some of the things that happened in the country in the first half of the year. Qingming Festival has been a festival of remembering ancestors since ancient times, so many people think that the main task is still sweeping graves, but because of the addition of a day of rest, so that some people's concepts began to change, more inclined to sweep the graves of the other side, in the use of 1 or 2 days for trekking, to learn about the martyrs, or Nongjiale and other tourist activities. Combined with the national cultural characteristics of this holiday, martyrs' cemeteries, some ancient or great people's graves, and revolutionary memorial halls, such tourist attractions during the Qingming Festival is very hot. The Dragon Boat Festival vacation is just before the final exams, so many students and parents have to give up the trip, home to prepare for the exams. And again after the earthquake, psychological pressure increased, the willingness to travel significantly reduced.

3.4 New features of the May Day holiday

1. Short (1, 2-day) tours are highly favored, while the long tours that were hot in previous years are on a significant decline

Travel agencies reflect that the 5-7 day long tours that were preferred in the past could not be implemented due to the limitation of the number of days of the holiday. Therefore, after most travel agencies have made discounts and price cuts, many long-haul tours are still inundated with inquiries, while fewer people actually sign up for them. As for those who need longer outbound tours, such as European tours, African tours and other routes, most of them are even more unattended.

In the face of only three days of long vacation, more tourists chose to travel within the province. According to reports, statistics of tourists, 80% are provincial tours, only 20% for the qua provincial tour. And the number of days of travel is also mostly 1 or 2 days, for example, overnight tourists in Yinchuan city dropped 20 percent compared with last year, and one-day tourists increased by 9.7 percent.

2. Leisure and rural tourism become the main choice of people's travel

Because of time constraints, many plans to travel to more distant destinations could not be realized, and people began to prefer short- and medium-distance leisure tours within the province. Rural tourism in the first half of 2008 quickly warmed up, especially during the May 1 period, the provinces and cities are full of farmhouse, surrounding residential places also reached more than 90% occupancy rate. For example, Changsha around the "Nongjiale" this kind of agricultural leisure tourism enterprises, May 1-3 bed occupancy rate of up to 94%, much higher than the city's average occupancy rate of 77% of the lodging facilities during the same period.

3. Free travel, self-help tours, self-driving tours become the main mode of tourism

The number of free travel, self-help tours and self-driving tours rose significantly during this year's May Day holiday, with some scenic spots reflecting that about 80 percent of the daily tourists were in this category. Because of the short time, the location of the tour is generally closer, so many people choose a more free way to travel, so as to get rid of the shackles of the travel agency. It is thus found that the traditional travel agency industry, which used to be the carrier of people's travel, has faced serious challenges after the reform of the holiday system. China Merchants International Travel Service (CITS) said that many long-haul travel routes were not filled on May 1 this year, and the overall number of travelers was only about half of last year's number. CTS said only the self-driving route was the best among the May Day travel routes, while the rest were average.

Travel characteristics presented after the 3.5-day long vacation instead of the Golden Week

The characteristics presented by the three-day long vacations of the Ching Ming and Dragon Boat festivals are very similar to those of the May Day long vacation, which are both in favor of short-distance travel, with leisure tours and agricultural fun, and self-driving tours being the main mode of travel. Therefore, the province's tourist attractions and the surrounding areas of the farmhouse products gained a lot. The travel agency's travel routes are also made great adjustments, by pushing the long domestic, international tours change to the development of short tours. Due to time constraints, people can not carry out long-distance travel, international routes, relatively close to Southeast Asia tourism, and Hong Kong tours have become the focus of attention, such as the number of Hong Kong Disneyland has shown a burst of long state. After the cancellation of the May Day Golden Week, a reasonable distribution of people's travel time at the same time, experts speculate that, since the Spring Festival, people do not have a long enough time to travel, the desire to travel the mood is likely to affect the upcoming eleven, and the Spring Festival in 2009, resulting in the number of travelers in those 2 golden weeks significantly higher state.

3.6 Conclusion

After 8 years of the May Day Golden Week, the first half of 2008 was the first time that the previous holiday period was changed. 3 long holidays did not bring about a significant increase in tourism like the Golden Week in the previous years, but it did rationalize people's travel schedules. Changed the previous kind of 3 golden weeks to get the tourism revenue, accounted for 60% -70% of the total annual tourism revenue, and the rest of the time are tourism off-season unreasonable law.

While in the short term if the golden week is canceled, for the tourism industry, especially the attractions industry, but in the long run, the increase in leisure time will be the direction of future development, the tourism industry will benefit, and the change in people's habits, consumption upgrade will be conducive to the healthy and rapid development of China's tourism industry.

However, with the Beijing Olympic flame successfully reaching the summit of Mount Everest on May 8 and then being smoothly passed on in Lhasa on June 21, it showed that Tibet's stable situation is ready to receive visitors from all directions. on April 23, Tibet resumed the reception of domestic tourists; from May 1, Hong Kong and Macao tourists were also allowed to travel to Tibet; and on June 25, the opening up of inbound tourism market was formally resumed, and travel agencies started to receive foreign tourists. Travel agencies began to receive foreign tourists. The director of the Tibet Tourism Bureau, Zha Noi, said: from April 23 to June 20, Tibet has received more than 160 tourist groups, and Tibet tourism is in the process of full recovery. Industry insiders judge that Tibet's tourism economy may have suffered a heavy blow in the short term, but long-term development remains favorable.

Four, the future development of tourism in general tends to be good

Throughout the first half of China's tourism events and the impact of tourism analysis, the Greenwich Vision that it is not difficult to find that, due to the snowstorms, earthquakes and other natural disasters, China's tourist arrivals and tourism revenue in general was a significant downward trend in the tourism industry will have a greater negative impact. But with the holding of the Olympic Games, and holiday effects, due to snowstorms, earthquakes are inhibited by the tourism consumer demand in the second half of the year is expected to get a greater degree of release, and from the long-term development trend, by the strong demand for tourism market and tourism consumption upgrading of the two rounds of driving the impact of China's tourism industry will enter the cycle of boom rebound. Therefore, in China's sustained economic growth, per capita income continues to improve the background, the long-term positive trend of the tourism industry will not change due to the disaster events, this is because:

4.1 Disaster events impact is transient

On the past for China's economy to bring a huge impact on the analysis of the major events found that the impact of these events on China's real economy are temporary, the floods in 1998, the 2003 SARS outbreak, the impact of the real economy, the impact of the disaster in China's real economy, the impact of the disaster in China's real economy is temporary. The flood in 1998 and SARS in 2003 failed to stop the rapid development of China's economy. Therefore, we can be sure: snowstorms, earthquakes and other catastrophic events on China's economy will also be short-lived. After the snowstorms, earthquakes and other events on the impact of tourism analysis, these events on China's tourism market will also be a short-lived, regional impact, with the continuous improvement of the domestic tourism environment and the impact of the event of the decline, China's tourism market will steadily into the fast lane of high-speed development.

4.2 The Olympic Games will have a long-term impact on China's tourism

The hosting of the Olympic Games has enhanced China's international popularity and made the economic scale and basic soft and hardware facilities of the hosting cities such as Beijing and Qingdao leap to a new level, injecting new vitality into the sustainable development of China's tourism following the Olympic Games. In order to hold the Olympic Games, the country invested a lot of manpower and material resources to improve all kinds of infrastructures and supporting service facilities, and at the same time repaired some of the famous scenic spots, beautified the urban environment, and improved the attractiveness of the city. For example, when bidding for the Olympic Games, Beijing promised the Olympic Committee that there would be 800 star-rated hotels by 2008, of which 40 would be five-star hotels and 70 would be four-star hotels, and these promises would greatly improve the quality of Beijing's service industry. The impact of infrastructure development such as this is long term and contributes to the long term development of tourism in the cities.

4.3 Sustained economic growth will continue to promote tourism development

China's sustained high economic growth will continue to promote the rapid development of tourism. 2007 China's GDP growth of 11.4% in the consumption of 4.4 percentage points, higher than the investment of 0.1 percentage points, the growth of overall consumption driven by the contribution to GDP for the first time in seven years more than investment. The Central Economic Work Conference also proposed to correctly handle the relationship between investment and consumption, domestic demand and external demand, the most fundamental is to expand domestic consumption demand. Tourism consumption characterized by culture and leisure will be an important part of Chinese people's consumption upgrade. According to international experience, when a country's per capita GDP exceeds $1,000, tourism consumption will start, and when per capita GDP exceeds $3,000 cross-border tours will be commonly generated. China's per capita GDP exceeded US$1,000 in 2003, and per capita GDP will exceed US$3,000 by 2010. Therefore, it can be said that China's domestic tourism consumption has only just started, while consumption of overseas tourism will enter the start-up phase, and China's tourism industry will enter another rapid development phase in the next few years. According to the analysis of the National Bureau of Statistics, China's per capita consumption from 2003 to 2020 will increase at an annual rate of 10.8%, in this good situation, with the concept of upgrading the whole consumer continues to take root in the minds of the people, and the government on the introduction of paid leave policies for employees, people will continue to higher standard of living, the development of the tourism market is very broad prospects.

4.4 Adjustment of vacation policy boosts the development of tourism

The implementation of paid vacations provides financial assurance for people to go out, and tourism becomes the choice of most people. With the adjustment of the Golden Week vacation and the implementation of the small long vacation policy, residents have more leisure time. Paid vacations make long-distance travel possible; since the small long holidays are shorter, they have a greater impact on the short-distance travel market. Overall, the adjustment of China's vacation policy has become a booster for tourism development, constantly promoting the development of China's tourism market for the better.

Therefore, the green-dimensional creation of the view that despite the first half of China's many unfavorable tourism development of the catastrophic events, but under the correct leadership of the Chinese government, under the impetus of the Olympic boom, the development of China's tourism industry in the future will continue to show a good trend.