Chinese travelers look to Internet

With the Internet the most widely used channel for information search, tourism boards at destinations would be well-advised to focus on advertising on the Internet, based on a recent study.
 

The study found that the Internet has become the most popular medium for Chinese travelers seeking information about their trips, according to the latest Nielsen China Outbound Travel Monitor.
 

Is that the case elsewhere? Apparently so.
 

The Nielsen survey found that travelers will search for conventional destination information ahead of their trips (61 percent of leisure trips taken), and then turn to online travel discussion forums (48 percent) to fine-tune their plans.
 

“This suggests that opinions and comments about travel experiences posted to online forums are nearly as likely to influence travelers’ decisions as the destination websites themselves,” the site concluded.
 

The Nielsen survey also found that travelers were much more likely to recall seeing Internet advertising for travel destinations, compared to seeing travel advertising on other mediums.

More than two-thirds could recall seeing travel advertisements on the Internet, with only four in ten recalling seeing a travel advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, at a travel agent or on TV and radio.

The Nielsen China Outbound Travel Monitor also uncovered the media expenditure of the top 15 destinations for Chinese travelers and spending by various destinations’ national and state tourism bodies.
 

According to Nielsen, in 2008 the total destination media expenditure in China from the top 15 destinations (by visitor numbers) was close to USD$68 million.
 

All the big spenders were in Asia Pacific.
 

South Korea was the biggest single spender, accounting for 31 percent. Singapore was second (22 percent), followed by New Zealand (15 percent) and Australia (11 percent).

Nielsen found that some destination tourism bodies advertised across all five major media formats to promote their destinations. For example, tourism bodies from South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia used all the major media styles in promoting their destinations to Chinese consumers.
 

However, tourism bodies from European countries used mainly newspapers and magazines.

Nielsen estimates that only 1.55 percent of the total destination media expenditure was spent on Internet advertising. Moreover, there were a lot of countries that did not spend any money on Internet advertising.
 

John Koldowski, PATA’s Director, Strategic Intelligence Centre, said:
 

“In today’s tough business environment, every dollar, euro or RMB invested needs to have the best possible ROI outcome attached to it. With these results showing that the largest proportion of China’s outbound travelers — both business and leisure — use the Internet as a pre-trip information tool, it makes sense that marketers should leverage that usage to increase the visibility of their own products and deals. He added:
 

“The fact that the cost of doing so is minimal, relative to more traditional media formats, suggests that this is one way of achieving that much sought after balance — more consumer contact with higher product recall at a much lower unit cost.”
 

By David Wilkening