Another sign of the times
In Cyberdad's now highly anticipated series on "the sign of the times" we now turn to the tourism industry.
Right now only 9 per cent of the Chinese population – some 120 million people – hold passports. But according to the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, that number will hit 400 million by 2030.
https://china-outbound.com/
That means more than one in four of all international tourists will be Chinese within a decade and our tourism industry will be even more dependent on Chinese tourists.
While this represents good news for western economies it also opens up other problems
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/travel/ ... -tourists/
There's ample examples in the past 5 years
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/art ... e-cringing
And who could forget this
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/a ... stewardess
However sometimes tourists from this region can be downright diabolical in their behaviour
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-u ... b7e4789f9d
However with the money this tourist market will bring globally and their insatiable appetite for travel after COVID, If they won’t change (and they probably wont) then are we westerners going to have to change our expectations for the sake of $$?
goldfish21
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I live in a tiny village in the hills… I’ve even noticed Chinese tourists here in the last few weeks. Now that is truly weird. The place hasn’t changed much since the Romans left, so I don’t expect the Bladerunner scenario anytime soon.
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Steve J
Unkind tongue, right ill hast thou me rendered
For such desert to do me wreak and shame
goldfish21
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Age: 43
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Tourists from some places will travel to remote off the beaten path places that locals don't consider tourist destinations at all.. just to see the landscape.
My friend is from way up North.. like thousands of km's North from a village with a population of like 65 people in the barren frozen North.. and yet Japanese and German tourists will come to the area and trek around and take photos. I guess it's interesting to them just being so remote with such a foreign/strange landscape ? But certainly not the type of area locals, or almost all other Canadians, would consider a tourist attraction.
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No
I was reading that African Safaris are now increasingly catering to Chinese tourists who also want to see "big game", so I guess the plains of Africa are also not going to be transformed into a sci-fi anime world that resembles Tokyo or Shanghai either.
But in major cities (again I said Melbourne, Vancouver but could also throw in LA or NY) the skyscape advertising could easily become aimed at an Asian tourist market. I am talking about Chinese from Mainland China but throughout south-east the Chinese community is growing in the millions. A large chunk of our Asian student population in Australia (for example) are Chinese from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia rather than mainland China. In suburbs in Melbourne for years now there are entire shopping precincts that cater only for Chinese customers and writing is in Mandarin script. So it's already happened.
The point is the tourists from Mainland China want to have Chinese tour operators, visit Chinese owned shops and eat Chinese food when they visit Australia. So local operators are essentially not getting their fair share.
