HMH - Hospitality Management Holdings Eyes Chinese Travellers

HMH - Hospitality Management Holdings is eager to have its share of the burgeoning Chinese travellers. Consequently the group is aggressively promoting its various properties in the country by participating in key trade events such as China Outbound Travel & Tourism Market (COTTTM) as well as organising a series of strategic road shows and sales initiatives.

HMH CEO Laurent A. Voivenel observed, "Demand for UAE as a preferred destination among Chinese travellers is no doubt growing. It is vital to increase our brand exposure in China at this point, as it has enormous potential for growth. It could open up significant revenue streams for affordable hotel brands such as ours. We are, therefore, monitoring closely the Chinese market that is proving to be an increasingly lucrative source of visitors and are gearing up to cater for preferences of these travellers by appointing Chinese speaking staff as well as customising menus, entertainment, etc."

According to China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, China is the biggest outbound tourism source market in the world with more than 160 US$ spent by 116 million travellers in 2014. Total outbound tourist numbers will reach 200m by the end of the decade, while travel spending will triple. Fuelling this growth are mainly Chinese millennials who make up a large and growing slice of the country’s most affluent citizens. It’s estimated that there are around 300m of these young consumers born between the early 1980s and 2000. Chinese millennials are big spenders on international travel and typically make four trips outside their country per year, twice as many as their Asian peers.

Dubai will remain the most popular choice for Chinese travellers in the Middle East and Africa region (Mena) as tourist arrivals are set to almost double (up by 97 per cent) to more than 540,000 travellers by 2023 as compared to 276,000 in 2013. According to Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) China moved from tenth position to seventh, experiencing 24.9 per cent growth in the last 12 months with 344,329 hotel guests compared to 275,675 in 2013.