Although Italy and France don't recognize Chinese driver's licenses, countries like Germany, Switzerland and Spain let Chinese tourists drive. Han warns his tourists about the risks on the roads in Europe but most still want to try their hand at this.
"Tourists can drive the whole trip by themselves or they can hire someone to drive for them. We want them to take their time, slow down while they travel and enjoy the different cultures," Han said.
Changed mentality
"China has been through a very prosperous period in development and now it is entering a steady period. This has changed people's mentality. Now they don't want to charge into Europe and visit seven countries in 10 days. They prefer now to visit one country for 10 days," Chen Ji, the vice director of Rooster Tours said. Rooster Tours is a Barcelona based travel agency. Founded in 1993, it has been welcoming Chinese tourists to Spain for more than 20 years.
Compared to Italy and France, which are the most popular destinations for Chinese tourists in Europe, Spain has fewer Chinese tourists. One reason is that there are not as many direct flights from China to Spain as there are to other European countries.
"In 2014, Spain saw more than 200,000 Chinese tourists, and the number is still growing. The Spanish government projects that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Spain will reach a million annually from 2020," Chen said. "We have some high-end customers. They have visited many other countries and they are experienced travelers. Now they want to go further afield and see something different."
For Chinese people Spain is not just famous for football and architecture, but also its natural environment. There are several beautiful golf courses in Madrid and Barcelona, and along the south coast. Every year, Rooster Tours organizes a tailor-made golf tour for golfing enthusiasts from China. They take a 15-day trip to Spain and play in a golf tournament where players go to a new course every two or three days and enjoy sightseeing as well as sport.
Some Chinese tourists are traveling for study. New Chapters, a British company focusing on British lifestyle education, has welcomed a lot of Chinese visitors who want to learn about British culture.
"We have clients who want to learn about Western art, antiques and interiors. We organize meetings with Britain's top interior designers for them and invite them to see their current projects," Esther Leong, the founder of New Chapters, told the Global Times.
When these Chinese tourists travel, they want to learn about the history, traditions and the culture alongside the attractions. Some Chinese parents take their children abroad and want agencies to organize visits to famous universities and schools.
Assistant Professor Popely said Chinese outbound tourists tended to travel in groups (24.8 percent), or as couples (23.8 percent), or with families (21.4 percent). "Package tours still accounted for 70 percent of all the tourist visits to the U.S. but the emphasis is shifting from multi-destination to multi-experience tours, which offer personalized itineraries with more time to experience local sights," she said.
Growing independence
Popely believes that the independent Chinese traveler is becoming more common. "According to the latest figures from the China Internet Network Information Center, China now boasts more than 618 million Internet users, more than 80 percent of whom access the Web via their mobile devices.
This trend is reflected in the responses from Chinese international travelers, more than half of whom (53 percent) are now booking their hotel accommodation either on the Web or via mobile apps, directly with the hotels or via online travel companies."
Lü Jiaying, is an assistant professor with the School of Management at Zhejiang University, and said self-planned trips were replacing package tours in the Chinese tourism market. "Tailor-made trips could be a compromise between the two. It assures that there is personalized service and, at the same time, provides the convenience and discounts that agencies can arrange," she said. "This could be a great market segment."
Lü believes that the younger generation will be the key players in this market. They have a lot of spending power, and they have their own character. "If agencies can catch on to the consumer psychology and their preferences, they will dominate in this market."
