COTRI Director Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt quoted by Germany’s Die Zeit

COTRI Director Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt has been cited numerous times in a German-language article posted on Zeit Online on May 12^th, 2018.

Entitled ‘Der Markt passt sich an’ (‘The market will adapt itself’), the piece examines the effects that the enormous growth in Chinese outbound travel since 2004 has had on the global tourism industry.

Discussing the unique travel habits of Chinese tourists, Prof. Arlt underlines that, in contrast to the five to six weeks annual leave that many Europeans would be used to, the Chinese must typically fit their holidays into a period of seven to ten days. Accordingly, they see overseas travel as an opportunity to fit in as much activity as possible in a shorter amount of time.

With China having established itself in recent years as the world’s leading international source market by both expenditure and number of trips made, Prof. Arlt comments that western tourists’ position as the most ‘favoured’ visitors to destinations worldwide has been challenged by the Chinese. As an example, he cites the case of a popular jewellery store in São Paulo, where there are five sales points for Chinese-speaking customers and only one for all others.

As the market impact of the growth in Chinese outbound tourism becomes increasingly pronounced, the article asserts that destination markets will adapt their services accordingly. Building upon this answer, Prof. Arlt points to a planned ‘Red Tourism’ offer – tailored to the interests and needs of Chinese travellers in Europe – based around an historical tour of European cities connected to the legacies of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Written by Klaus Raab, ‘Der Markt passt sich an’ is available in German at the following link.

Image: Asian Tourist Takes Pictures In Line For Statue of Liberty Ferry by paul_houle, Source: flickr Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)