This photo taken on June 26, 2024 shows a general view of the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. (Xinhua/Sun Fei)
BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- The kickoff of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games has led to an upsurge in enthusiasm of Chinese tourists to travel to France and other European countries.
It is learned that China's online tourism platforms has enjoyed a sharp increase of outbound travel bookings recently.
According to data from Ctrip, China's leading online travel agency, the total bookings of tourists from the Chinese mainland traveling to Paris during the Olympics (from July 26 to August 11) surged by 114 percent year on year so far, of which hotel bookings in Paris rose by 194 percent year on year, and car rental bookings in France increased by 126 percent year on year.
On the Tongcheng travel platform, in the first week after the commencement of the Olympics, the bookings of flights from major cities in China to Paris soared up by over 150 percent, while the bookings of downtown hotels in Paris rocketed by over four folds year on year.
-- "Europe travel boom" spurred by the Olympics
Driven by the Paris 2024 Olympics, China's tourism market of European routes goes viral in this summer.
Data from Ctrip shows that during the event, the hotel bookings in Europe by tourists from the Chinese mainland rose by 143 percent year on year.
There has appeared a trend of chartered travel with the bookings of chartered tours in Europe up 68 percent from the same period of last year. The most popular destinations include France, Germany, Italy and Spain, among which France is the top choice. Chinese tourists prefer one-day trip of Paris as well as multi-country tours like the France-Italy-Switzerland tour and the Netherlands-Belgium-Luxemburg-Germany-France tour.
Tongcheng's data also indicates that the Olympic Games had a remarkable driving effect on travel to France and other European destinations, and the most popular ones for Chinese visitors are England, Budapest, Catalonia and Lazio.
As a successor of the UEFA EURO 2024 football championship, the Paris Olympics extends the boom of travel to Europe in this summer. At present, France and Germany are the top two European destinations of China's outbound travel, where the booking volume of relevant routes has more than doubled compared to last summer.
Quite a few airlines have launched new flight routes to Europe to satisfy the swelling market demand.
China Eastern Airlines recently added 16 round trips of "Olympic flights" between Shanghai and Paris. At the beginning of this July, Junyao Airlines started to offer direct flights from Shanghai to Brussels and Manchester, while China Eastern Airlines launched a Shanghai-Marseille direct flight.
According to China’s flight travel app Umetrip, as of July 19, flight bookings to France by Chinese tourists in the period from July 24 to August 11 grew by about 1.1 times year on year, and about 23 percent month on month, while flight bookings to Europ increased by about 89 percent, 18 percentages higher than a month ago.
Data from Qunar, an online travel service provider shows that as of July 22, the booking volume of international flights to Paris during the Olympics grew by 2.4 times compared to the same period of the previous year.
It is a mutual tourism boom that more French tourists are coming to China. Ctrip's data indicates that the booking volume of inbound tourists from Paris during the Olympics records a year-on-year increase of 72 percent. The most favorite cities of French tourists are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Chengdu, Wenzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Kunming.
A research report of Minsheng Securities explains that thanks to the rapid recovery of international flights and the wider scope of visa-free countries, the travel radius of Chinese citizens have been significantly prolonged in this summer vacation, and both inbound and outbound tourism markets continue to thrive. In addition, the commencement of the Olympics has heralded the start of a tourism wave to France and other European countries. The report suggests investors pay attention to the opportunity of outbound tourism, and include highly popular travel agencies and OTA platforms into their portfolios.
-- New business opportunities brought by Olympic economy
In addition to the "Europe travel boom", a number of top-tier consumer companies are taking advantage of the Olympic economy to explore the European market at a faster pace. For example, Hong Kong-listed Pop Mart officially opened its Louvre store on July 27, becoming China's first toy retailer to open a store in the national art museum in Paris.
A manager of Pop Mart said that settling in the Louvre marks a milestone for the company's European strategy. It presently has four stores in France and plans to open more outlets in Europe. The launch of the Louvre store is a significant measure to expand the company's presence and influence by leveraging world-class sports events.
Besides, Chinese e-commerce giants also actively take actions to seize the opportunity of the Olympic craze.
Recently, Alibaba.com has intensified investment in European market and simultaneously launched the Olympic special promotion to help Chinese sellers get quick access to the overseas market.
As of July 23, the online Olympic-related exports on this platform exceeded 7 billion yuan. In addition to traditional sectors like sportswear and emerging businesses such as artificial turf and sports floor enjoyed considerable growth prior to the event, with the orders of exports to France witnessing a year-on-year growth of 139.58 percent.
The online traffic of our store on Alibaba.com has surged by 30-50 percent, said Lin Zhilie, general manager of Guangzhou Healy Apparel Co., Ltd, adding that each month, nearly 7,000 overseas buyers come to us for negotiation on cooperation, and such figure even reached 8,000 in July right before the opening of the Olympics
The Olympic economy spurs sports consumption in China. According to the online trading platform VIPShop, key words like "Olympics" and "Olympic style" are topping the list of search. Driven by dual factors of summer vacation and the Olympics, the sales volumes of off-road running shoes, quick drying T-shirts, sports polo shirts and kid's sunscreens have doubled. By sportswear brands, the sales of New Balance have an amazing year-on-year increase of more than 200 percent, while the sales of other brands like Xtep, Under Armour, FILA and Anta also grew by nearly 50 percent.
According to Yongxing Securities, the Olympic Games is taken as an impetus to sportswear consumption. On the arenas of the Paris Olympics, a number of Olympic delegations have partnered with Chinese brands. In addition to traditional sports brands, more high luxury brands, niche designer brands and fast fashion brands will join competition. The Olympic effect will probably yield sustainable benefits to brands. In 2024, which has witnessed several major world sports events, the sportswear brands are expected to usher in high-quality growth of business performance in 2024.(Edited by Yang Yifan with Xinhua Silk Road, yangyifan@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
