Chinese Tourist Satisfaction
Chinese tourists are the most attractive customers for the Korean tourism industry. Korea is the largest tourist destination for them, too. Still, some of them are feeling that they are treated rather poorly in Korea.
A total of 4.33 million Chinese tourists visited Korea in 2013, when 98.18 million Chinese went abroad and 65.53 million of them were headed for Hong Kong and Makao. Korea was visited by the largest number of outbound Chinese tourists by country. In addition, the number already reached 4.12 million during the first eight months of this year, and is expected to break the six million mark by the end of 2014. Approximately 160,000 people are estimated to have visited Korea during the Chinese holiday week starting from Oct. 1, the National Day of the People’s Republic of China, which is 35 percent more than a year earlier.
Chinese tourists tend to purchase a small number of products in large quantity in Korea. The examples include perfume, cosmetics, and clothes. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism, 73.1 percent of the Chinese tourists who traveled in Korea last year bought cosmetics and perfume, followed by clothes (40.8 percent), groceries (32.7 percent), ginseng and Oriental medicinal herbs (18.9 percent), and leather goods (14.8 percent).
They spent an average of US$379 per day, which is US$89 higher than the overall average of all inbound tourists. The total expenditure per visit was US$2,271 for the Chinese and US$1,648 for all inbound tourists. 53.8 percent and 42.8 percent of them opted for free independent travel and group tours, respectively. The others selected airtel tours. The group tour percentage was 27.7 percent all in all.
Nevertheless, Chinese tourists were not completely satisfied with their travel in Korea except for the shopping. “The Korean Wave in China is increasing the brand value of Korea there to get more people interested in Korean clothes and beauty products,” said Mr. Lee Sung-tae at the Korea Culture & Tourism Institute, adding, “We need to work on more types of products and positive images to better suit their needs.”