CHINA. Welcome to the latest issue of The Moodie Davitt China Travel Retail Report, published on the eve of a critical period for Chinese travel at home and abroad – the 40-day Lunar New Year holidays running from 26 January to 6 March.
The Chinese New Year travel rush, known as ‘Chun yun’ (春运 spring movement) is precisely that, an extraordinary human migration, the largest on earth. A record 9 billion trips across all forms of transport are expected to be made within China during the travel period, the first since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions, according to Xinhua news agency.
Travel retailers both at home and abroad have traditionally been major beneficiaries of this vast populace on the move. However, the prolonged COVID-19 crisis devastated outbound tourism through large chunks of 2020 through 2023 and the recovery is far from complete, a situation accentuated by the soft Chinese economy.
Advisory company Oxford Economics projects the number of international outbound trips taken by Chinese travellers in 2024 will roughly double relative to 2023, but even then the total will still lag -22% behind pre-pandemic levels.
Countries are doubling down on their efforts to attract Chinese visitors and it seems there will be winners and – big – losers. Internationally, several countries have rolled out visa-free agreements, including Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Thailand – home to King Power International, one of the world’s top duty free retailers – seems set to be a particular beneficiary, particularly with its visa-waiver programme taking effect on 1 March.
The Korean media made much this week of the fact that some 85,000 Chinese visitors are expected to enter the country. But pre the THAAD anti-missile system dispute and the pandemic that number would have been closer to 500,000. The total certainly pales in comparison with the anticipated 1 million Mainlander arrivals to Macau.
We examine the current state of play and will present a detailed follow-up in our late March post-CNY edition. Elsewhere in this issue we discover how China Duty Free Group (CDFG), the world’s number one travel retailer, is ushering in CNY. And we examine how the group swept The Moodies, the industry’s only dedicated social & digital media awards.
We also speak to Chinese entrepreneur Roger Wang who travelled to France intent on acquiring a winery. He returned with a Cognac instead and Duc de Fugue has never looked back since.
We take a first look at the Global Beauty Plaza in China Duty Free Group’s long-awaited ‘Block C’ at the Sanya International Duty Free Shopping Complex (look out for our on location report coming soon), which brings a new dimension to the acclaimed Haitang Bay retail emporium.
Martin Moodie reports on location from Macau, where DFS Group curated an extraordinary assemblage of rare and luxury timepieces at Masters of Time 2023. And we profile some of the most innovative recent brand and retailer collaborations in China’s travel retail world.
Please enjoy this edition. ✈
