According to a recent study of the Chinese travel search engine Qunar.com, Chinese women are becoming the benchmark for the industry. Women-oriented tourism has been booming and travel providers as well as tour operators are preparing to take this opportunity and branch out.
Qunar.com is the biggest Chinese language travel search engine and within the last few years, it has been monitoring the character and choices of its visitors. According to its 2010 Trend Report of Women’s Travel, well-educated and single Chinese women are the driving force of the industry; in 2010 alone, the average expenditure of women increased by a whopping 20%.
Interestingly, women are also more inclined to leave feedback on their travel experience and share with others; 70% of comments left on Qunar.com were in fact added by women. Women have become a very relevant buying force and many international hotel chains already focus on targeting them in their promotion campaigns. Many have opened women-only floors, and room amenities have also been adjusted accordingly. Exercise videos, health and beauty tip cards, yoga mats, fashion magazines – all these are starting to appear in hotel rooms. Many hotels have also revised their menus in order to fit the dietary expectations of many of their female guests.
Qunar.com also revealed that women select their holiday destination not only according to its fashion and shopping potential, but often choose a famous spot linked to a TV series, a romantic film or social scene.
Considering that last year, 65 million Chinese travelled abroad, and this number is expected to reach 100 million by 2020, and the major decision makers are Chinese women, it seems rather like a safe bet for many travel providers to go with the flow and meet the needs of such a significant tourist power.