Walking tours tell Shanghai's story

A booming market segment

According to Xu, while professional walking tours were already popular in London in the 1980s, it wasn't till 2014 that such activities became more commonplace in Shanghai. The segment then received a major boost in 2015 when QYER.com, a Chinese online travel platform for social networking and services, launched a campaign in China to solicit for global partners to promote walking tours in the country.

The launch of Airbnb's Experiences Program in November 2016, added Xu, also helped to promote such tours. In a 2017 interview with Fortune magazine, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said that the company's Experiences business had grown 12 times from January to October that year, and nearly 13 times faster than its homes businesses during the same period.

Today, one would be able to find dozens of private walking tours in Shanghai that are themed around culture, photography and food on sites like Airbnb, QYER and Viator. Competition in this segment today, said Xu, is fiercer than ever.

"I think a lot of people are joining the market because organizing a city walk seems like a relatively easy business to run. You don't need special skills. You just need a good knowledge of the city. Besides, this service also meets people's current needs for travel," she said.

"There is definitely a lot more competition now. There are even architecture firms that are entering the game. For example, the American Institute of Architects offers their own architecture-focused tours across the city."

The growing number of tourists to Shanghai is also an enticing factor for people to offer such services. Officials had in 2017 announced that Shanghai welcomed 8.73 million inbound travelers that year, and the figure is expected to swell to 10 million by 2020 and 14 million by 2035.

According to official statistics, the annual revenue of the city's tourism sector had grown an average 7.1 percent from 2013 to 2017. Shanghai was also ranked as the biggest tourism market last year by the World Travel & Tourism Council. In the organization's annual Cities Report, Shanghai topped the rankings with a market size of $35 billion. Beijing took second place with $32.5 billion while Paris was third with $28 billion.

The growth of the walking tours segment is not limited to just Shanghai. Last year, US adventure travel company Backroads reported that its walking and hiking tours had experienced double digit growth over the past few years and were its fastest-growing segment.

Hu Ruixi, cofounder of Lost Plate, a travel operator that specializes in food tours, pointed out that while competition is indeed growing, independent walking tour operators that provide an authentic local experience are still few and far between.

"I think competition in Shanghai is strong. There are a lot of people who want a piece of the action. But there is still a lack of independently-run authentic experiences - most tours are still run by big tour agencies who offer typical sightseeing destinations, and the bottom line is that most of those destinations in Shanghai are easily accessible without a guide, and they are not an authentic Shanghai or China experience," said Hu.