It has been over a year since outbound tourism resumed. Under the influence of factors such as warming temperatures, favorable visa free conditions, and the resumption of bulk flights, the domestic outbound tourism market has begun to warm up. According to statistics from the China Tourism Research Institute, the number of outbound tourists in China exceeded 87 million in 2023, and it is expected that the number of outbound tourists will reach 130 million in 2024.
Accommodation is a crucial part of the entire outbound travel chain to carry the journey. Since last year, there has been a trend for domestic outbound tourists to shift their accommodation choices from medium priced hotels to economy hotels. This trend is also reflected in the homestay platform ABNB. O, with a stock price of $160.11 and a market value of $103.6 billion.
As the Qingming Festival approaches, Kong Zhiqiu, the business manager of Airbnb China, gave an interview to a reporter from the Daily Economic News. According to Kong Zhiqiu, in December last year, the average room night price of single bedroom properties on the Airbnb platform decreased by 2% compared to the same period last year; The average price of hotels during the same period increased by 7% year-on-year, and the company's cost-effectiveness advantage is still expanding. However, although consumers are concerned about cost-effectiveness, their requirements for the quality of housing are also constantly increasing, and there is a trend of enthusiasm for deep travel and accommodation. With the gradual increase in willingness to travel abroad, it is expected that the Chinese outbound tourism market will experience a phased recovery during holidays this year.
The Chinese outbound tourism market is expected to experience a phased recovery during holidays
How much support has the recovering Chinese outbound tourism market brought to Airbnb's performance since the resumption of outbound tourism for over a year?
According to Kong Zhiqiu, in 2023, Airbnb achieved a revenue of 9.917 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 18.07%; Realized a net profit of 4.792 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 154%. In the fourth quarter of 2023, driven by the recovery of cross-border tourism in China, the number of reserved room nights for outbound tourism users from China increased by nearly 90% year-on-year.
"In the past two years, we have paid more attention to outbound tourism. At the beginning of last year, the overall (domestic) outbound tourism market was opened up, and Airbnb's business showed strong growth." Kong Zhiqiu revealed that based on the current holiday recovery situation, during the 2024 Spring Festival, Airbnb's overall outbound tourism booking volume for Chinese users increased by over 700% year-on-year, and the Asia Pacific region increased by over 1100% year-on-year.
When it comes to this year's development expectations, Kong Zhiqiu said that the recovery of Airbnb's business is basically in line with the pace of the tourism market, but the progress of market recovery is still affected by various factors such as holidays, flight volume, visas, etc. In his view, it is expected that by the end of 2024, the degree of recovery of (civil aviation) international flights may reach around 80% of the same period in 2019. In addition, many destinations have recently introduced visa free policies to Chinese tourists, and it is expected that the Chinese outbound tourism market will experience a phased recovery during important holidays this year.
Based on the above factors, Kong Zhiqiu stated that Airbnb China has high expectations for the domestic outbound tourism market in 2024, and this year's goal is for the overall business to surpass the level of the same period in 2019.
"In fact, we can set the 'flag' of 'anti surpassing 2019 in 2024' with a lot of internal and external data as support." Kong Zhiqiu revealed that on the one hand, with the return of Chinese tourists to the Asia Pacific region, the booking volume of Chinese users on the Airbnb platform involving popular destinations such as Thailand and Malaysia has already exceeded the same period in 2019; On the other hand, compared to hotel rooms of the same type, the average room rate for single bedroom rooms on the Airbnb platform decreased by 2% in December 2023 compared to the same period last year; The average price of hotels during the same period increased by 7% year-on-year. "In terms of cost-effectiveness, our advantage is still expanding," said Kong Zhiqiu.
Many Chinese outbound tourists travel and reside abroad
However, although emphasizing the advantage of cost-effectiveness, Kong Zhiqiu also stated that according to statistics from Airbnb, Chinese outbound tourists, especially young users, do indeed pursue value for money when traveling, but this is not blindly pursuing low prices, and the demand for housing quality is increasing.
While pursuing quality and ensuring cost-effectiveness, the multi person "shared room" model has become the preferred choice. According to Kong Zhiqiu, based on the spring travel room booking situation on the Airbnb platform, multi person travel has grown rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of over 400%. After a few years, what changes have occurred in the consumption tendencies of Chinese tourists who are embarking on their outbound travel journey again?
First, let's take a look at destination screening. According to Kong Zhiqiu, although long-term outbound tourism is gradually recovering, such as the UK, Italy, France, Norway, etc., the first stop for most Chinese tourists to resume outbound tourism is still the nearby Asia Pacific destination. Meanwhile, when choosing overseas properties, Chinese tourists tend to prefer landlords and properties that can communicate in Chinese.
In addition, like other tourism sub sectors after the epidemic, deep tourism is also a popular direction for outbound tourists to try. Besides going to some big cities, they also hope to delve deeper into niche destinations. Taking Japan as an example, Kong Zhiqiu pointed out that on the Airbnb platform, more than half of users also searched for nearby "treasure" destinations when searching for properties in Osaka, driving the search popularity in places such as Hakone and Fuji Kawaguchi Lake to increase by more than 2000% year-on-year.
It is worth noting that according to Kong Zhiqiu, there has been a significant increase in the number of outbound tourists from China staying through Airbnb since last year. "We see that more young people in the Z era are choosing to travel abroad, living at tourist destinations for a period of time while working and traveling, with durations ranging from a few weeks to several months. Of course, it is also a trend for multiple destinations to connect with each other."
In fact, since the resumption of outbound tourism, in addition to destination screening and monitoring local price changes, concerns about whether overseas tourism products can meet the supply are also issues that tourists will consider before traveling. Fortunately, compared to hotels that often spend high renovation costs, homestay landlords have relatively lower operating costs and do not rely heavily on a single type of tenant. Thanks to this, according to Kong Zhiqiu, the global supply of Airbnb is still increasing during the suspension of outbound travel for domestic tourists. As of the end of 2023, Airbnb has over 7.7 million active listings worldwide.
"After the gradual recovery of outbound tourism, we have consciously made some optimizations for Chinese outbound users, such as increasing the number of Chinese landlords and interacting with them as much as possible in destinations with high booking ratios of Chinese landlords such as Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia. In fact, the entire overseas tourism industry is eagerly anticipating the return of Chinese tourists. Recently, we can feel that the enthusiasm of overseas landlords to entertain Chinese tourists is very high." Kong Zhiqiu said.