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Organized tours to Europe loses shine
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THE number of Shanghai travelers taking organized group tours to Europe and North America dropped last year after steady growth for years, according to an outbound tourism report released yesterday.
But in an emerging new trend, more local tourists prefer visiting European countries on their own instead of following the routes of travel agencies, the report claimed.
Last year, some 316,200 tourists from Shanghai visited Europe with organized tour groups. The number was down 5.63 percent from a year earlier, the Shanghai Tourism Administration said.
The number of local travelers to France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, the top four European destinations, all dropped by more than 10 percent last year. France, which ranked No. 5 in outbound destinations in 2012, fell to No.10 last year.
Group tours to the four European countries had been growing for four years but had now lost its appeal. Instead, they appealed to the FIT (Free Independent Traveler).
Seasoned travelers are becoming familiar with Europe and some have visited Europe every year. They relied on travel agencies only to apply for visas, book flights and hotels.
While organized trips to western Europe went down, those to eastern, northern, central and southern Europe — less familiar to Chinese travelers — posted a double-digit increase. Russia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Portugal were among the countries now preferred by Shanghai travelers.
The report was released during the 2014 Outbound Tourism Forum at the Shanghai World Travel Fair. Even trips to the United States took a hit, declining 14.9 percent to 87,501.
The report said there were not many flights available to North America with air fares relatively high and journeys exhausting. The North American market was also slow to open up to the Chinese travelers.
There are new trends. Demand for tailored family group tours, with two to three families with 7 to 10 members, has risen. The high-end market and tailored tours also sold well with a specific North Pole route promoted by the Shanghai China Travel International selling out in a month.
Traditional travel agencies are tapping the high-end market for a 52-day self drive tour from Shanghai to Milan covering eight countries.
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