Cultivating Chinese tourists' overseas dreams

Deng Meijia (second from right), a 17-year-old student from the British School of Beijing, on a recent trip to Tanzania.[Provided to China Daily]

While experienced travelers consider Africa a must visit, concerns such as safety still remain

In an upmarket Beijing cafe, Gong Jiayi sips her flat white coffee and enthusiastically runs through the highlights of her latest holiday to Japan.

The 27-year-old, middle-class professional is one of an estimated 100 million Chinese tourists who have already traveled abroad this year.

A hip and worldly project manager who works for an environmental consultancy firm, Gong represents the changing face of the new Chinese outbound traveler.

She likes to make her own travel arrangements instead of opting for a group tour, and she books her accommodation online or through mobile apps.

The Chinese tourist is a demographic that in the past decade has gone from being almost nonexistent to the biggest and most lucrative force in the global tourism market. Given that only about 5 percent of China's population of 1.3 billion is currently estimated to hold a passport, it is only going to get bigger.

In the next five years, the China Tourism Academy predicts the nation's total number of outbound tourists will rise to 150 million annually.

With an average travel budget of 20,000 yuan ($3,260), the Chinese tourist already spends more than any other nationality when on holiday. By the end of this year, estimates suggest they will collectively have spent a staggering $155 billion abroad in their travel destinations, a 20.8 percent increase from last year.

Gong has now vacationed in 10 countries. But not a single one of them has been in Africa.

She says there is a good reason why.

"I think Africa is a more difficult place to travel," she says. "But I do plan to go to Africa. I am just working up to it."

It is a common story among Chinese people bitten by the international travel bug, and tourism operators agree it is what they are increasingly hearing, too.

The latest figures from the China National Tourism Administration show that 1.895 million Chinese traveled to Africa in 2013, a massive 80.4 percent increase from 2012.

But while Africa currently only captures less than 2 percent of China's lucrative outbound tourist market annually, the growing confidence and experience of Chinese tourists has industry insiders and businesspeople banking on a big change in the near future.

According to those in the know, the continent should brace itself for a huge upsurge in tourism, because the Chinese are coming.

James Wu, general manager of luxury travel agency UULUX, is among those who strongly believe a "golden age" of Chinese tourism in Africa is just around the corner.

"In the past three years, the number of tourists going overseas through UULUX has been growing by 120 percent annually," he says. "Most of our clients are seasoned travelers who have already visited the classic tourist destinations many times. They are very well-established, mostly in their 30s and 40s, and therefore want something special during their visit. Africa is usually where people go after they have visited Southeast Asia, Europe and the US. As seasoned tourists grow, the number of travelers who go to Africa will increase as well. Though the number of tourists going to Africa accounts for only 1 percent of all outbound tourists, I believe that the golden age of Africa traveling is around the corner."

Wu says currently, the Ebola outbreak has put a dent in travel numbers to West Africa, but has not noticeably affected travel to other parts of the continent. The top five African destinations for Chinese travelers this year are South Africa, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Beyond the anecdotal, an increasing number of Chinese investors are spending big in Africa in anticipation of China's tourism boom.

Yang Jun, chairman of the Qingdao-based Jin Yi Tong Group, says his company is branching out from construction machinery to invest $400 million in tourism ventures on two islands in Cape Verde off the coast of western Africa.