If you are googling about Chinese tourist, you will find this headline :

"Read This If You Think Chinese Tourists Are the Worst!"

"Chinese Tourists Are Taking Over the Earth, One Selfie at a Time."

"Chinese Tourist Behaving Badly : What Can Be Done?"

"Chinese Tourist Have No Manners."

Before I landed in China, I have no personal judgement. I only hear about how bad Chinese tourist characteristic, but to be honest I am not finding it by myself yet. So, what's my expectation back then?

One of the biggest mission of my international agenda in China a few days ago is having a deep understanding about China market and Chinese tourists. Considering China as the biggest market for Indonesia's tourism, the seminar became very necessary to attend. So I am writing this article not only for my professional purposes, but the more importantly for my Indonesian fellow who want to take some good points from this matter.

Outbound Travel Data in China

In 2017, the number of outbound Chinese tourists reached 130 million, an increase of 7% compared with the same period last year. China has maintained the status of the world's largest outbound tourist country for many years. So, how about their spending? For your information, the outbound tourism consumption scale of Chinese in 2017 has reached 115 billion US dollars, it has increased steadily, which is 5% growth compared with last year. Maybe that's why so many countries compete each other to attract Chinese tourist. It is not only because the amount of visitor but also the number of spending in each trip. Furthermore, top 3 favorite destination for Chinese tourists are South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.

Facts and Figures About ASEAN and China Tourism

1. China as the main source market for ASEAN tourism.

2. Most popular destination among Chinese tourists in ASEAN are Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Philipines. (What a miserable! So sad couldn't hear Indonesia as their popular destination). However, their TOM (Top of Mind) are Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.

3. Age 21-40 y.o with the most favorite activities are modernity, cultural experience and nature exploration.

4. Chinese tourists very curious with the way of life of the local people.

Fun Fact About Chinese Tourist

1. Why do Chinese tourist love to go to Thailand? Because of the food.

2. Chinese dislike number 4 but love number 6 and 8 (it's a lucky symbol).

3. They hope the hot water is provided in the hotel room to make tea.

4. They would be very happy if you could serve them some noodle, steamed rice, pickles, and congee for breakfast, bread for lunch and rice with steamed bread for dinner.

5. Chinese like hot milk.

6. Chinese tourist would be happy if they could find a local maps in Chinese language, TV program with Chinese language, any sign in Chines language at the public area.

7. If Chinese feel satisfy, they would share their positive story to their relatives (word of mouth).

8. School holiday period is about July up to August.

9. For family tourist characteristic, parent do not care about the money, but what their children get.

10. Chinese enjoy the view of city, high building, modernity, luxury goods. Put the convenience first for Chinese tourists.

Actually there are so many more Chinese characteristic. If you want to implement an effective marketing strategy, you need to remember that the most important thing to understand a consumer, you have to be their friend, act like them, give them the best recommendation and make them smile every single time. As one of my lecture said that when you judge Chinese tourists as the worst tourist in the world, sure they will feel so bad and hurt. You couldn't say any bad comment before you know them personally. Because what you need to do is only identifying Chinese tourists characteristic so that you could treat them well.

The most powerful word in the world - "Kun Fayakun"

It means, "His commands is only when He intends a thing that He says to it, "Be" and it is." 

Kadang kita gak akan pernah nyangka kejutan apa yang Allah siapkan untuk kita. Mau besok atau sekarang, kalau Allah berkehendak, maka hal itu tentu akan terjadi. Dan memang seperti itulah keajaiban yang saya alami.

A couple of months before, I never imagined about going some other countries beside the one I have planned long time ago. In 2018, I only intend to visit Japan (for honeymoon purposes) and Malaysia (for MotoGP reason, haha). So, when I was surprisingly chosen by my office to attend an international agenda in China, how can I say to my Lord?

Early morning of May 31th 2018, I have my flight from Jakarta to Shenzhen (China) for about five hours then we need to tie our body up for transit time in that super marvelous airport up to nine hours. Shenzhen International Airport become my favorite because of its technology and modernity. I could feel the technology and sense of art blend perfectly, represent Shenzhen as the city of future. At 3pm Shenzhen local time, we continued our journey to Haikou, Hainan, China, the main city where the event was held. 

Ah, sorry for not inform you that I have another four special partners for my two weeks course, They're Bertha and Ghora (I think you could find their name or maybe photos in this blog, haha) also Mbak Vitria and Mbak Litani (my another wonderful colleagues).

One and a half hours, we arrived in Haikou and met Mei Mei, the committee member. Actually Mei Mei is not part of Commerce Training Center of Hainan Province, but she is an internship and she said that her main duty only to pick us up, she would not met us in the daily seminar because she had to arrange another seminar in the same time. Okay Mei Mei, at least it was nice to meet you and it was pretty funny to see your palm face when you asked us why we wore jacket and sweater because you though Indonesia has the same hot weather just like in Haikou XD. 

Came to the main event means came to the moment we met new people. Douglas, Alice, Winnie, Cindy are the member of committees. I would love to share our story with them later in the next posting. So, how about another delegates? Because it was a special seminar arranged by Hainan Province to ASEAN countries. Meeting another ASEAN degelates is required. 

Okay, I would like to make you clear. The international agenda I need to attend is Seminar on Modern Tourism for ASEAN Development Countries. This seminar held by Commercial Traning Center, Department of Commerce, Hainan Province, China. I would spend my forth nine days with the other delegates just to learn about China market in the term of tourism industry. Bertha, Ghora, Mbak Vitria, Mbak Litani and I have a role as Indonesia representatives. What we did and what we presented were on behalf of Ministry of Tourism, Republic of Indonesia.

Maybe some of you are questioning, why did China government held this kind of event? Actually, China government have their regular program which called China's mission for ASEAN countries, so this seminar is only an instance of it. The nine days seminar consist of five days in class agenda and field trip for the rest. If I could sum up the whole agenda, there were some lectures about Technology and Application in Tourism Sector, Eco-Tourism, Internet Plus Tourism, The Profile of China, The Characteristic of Chinese Tourist, then The Belt and Road Initiative. Therefore, we also have some insightful field trips. We visited Tongcheng International Travel Service Co., Ltd in Su Zhou (about an hour drive from Shanghai), we learnt about production process of silk in the number one Silk Factory in Su Zhou. In the next day we visited Ctrip Company Headquarter in Shanghai (one of the biggest OTA company in China). Two days before we departed from Haikou, we went to Hainan Resort Software Community to study about special region in Haikou which have a rapid development due to technology application.

This seminar actually not only gave us an adequate knowledge about China in the term of tourism industry, but also reinforce Indonesia role as part of ASEAN countries. We discussed about our tourism in the class session, but when the class off, we have a conversation with other delegates as a friend. I am glad to be one of luckiest girl stand in this seminar because it gave me opportunity to know more about another countries. We did either cultural exchange or professional  exchange. If we feel superior between other ASEAN countries, we couldn't do that anymore. Because you'll know that every single country has their own strength. Cooperation and collaboration are two things we need to implement. 

Eleven days of this wondrous journey couldn't be shared in only one article. I guess I need to create the series and write more, haha.. It was truly a chance of international relation that couldn't be passed by.