The return of Chinese tourism is costing more than expected. The pandemic nipped in the bud the upward trend registered by this sweet-tooth market – they are the tourists who spend the most when they travel – and the lack of flights and visas is conditioning its recovery. The announcement of the new connection between Barcelona and Shenzen, in addition to the three weekly frequencies with Shanghai, is a step towards the recovery of a market that has become a strategic objective.
“Most of the Asian tourists that we see now in Barcelona come from Korea,” explains Mateo Asensio, director of promotion for Barcelona Turisme. In this case, the reestablishment of flights has made it possible to recover, already in April, the figures registered in 2019. According to the Observatori del Turisme de Barcelona, ??Korea is now in the 12th position in terms of hotel occupancy with 1, 4% of total reservations. It is the only Asian country on this list. Not in vain, while Korean Air offers four weekly connections and Asiana another two, in China only three weekly flights are maintained, with the forecast of adding these two more weekly flights to Shenzen at the end of summer.
Another Asian country that has fallen off the list in Barcelona is Japan, with which there are currently no direct flights from Barcelona. “The war in Ukraine forces flights to be diverted, and the trip is now longer and more expensive,” says Asensio.
In the case of China, last year Barcelona received only a third of the 181,000 visitors registered in 2019. “The recovery is slow due to the difficulties that citizens of that country have in obtaining visas and because there are no flights, but the market Asian is a main objective because they are culturally motivated and because of their high purchasing power”, maintains Eduard Torres, president of Turisme de Barcelona.
Regarding spending per Tax Free check, Hong Kong ranks first with an average of 976 euros, but China is in second position with 774 euros spent per person per day. In total purchases, spending by Asian visitors triples the Barcelona average. “The city’s offer is limited, it cannot grow more; last year was very good and this is also being so; what we have to do now is choose the tourism we want, with the US market very strong – in June it represented 15.6% of hotel occupancy, only behind national tourism (19.6%) and ahead of the French visitors (7.4% and British (7.3%)–, we are interested in Asians coming”, Torres insists.
The missions organized throughout this year are situated in this line, first to Hong Kong and Shenzen, to activate the Asian market after three years of stoppage. “Nobody thought that the effects of the pandemic were going to last three years. In 2019, 800,000 Chinese tourists visited Spain and the projections we made for 2020 were 1.2 million visitors,” explains Yu Delong, from the Dragon Viajes agency, specialized in the Asian market and with more than 20 years of experience in this sector.
This week, twenty of the companies that have participated in Madrid in the Spain-China Tourism Cooperation Forum have visited Barcelona. In addition to going up the Glòries tower, touring Montjuïc, the 22@ or Paseo de Gràcia, a gala dinner was held at the Arts hotel, with representatives of the catering sector, commerce, the Gremi d’Hotels or institutions such as the Palau de la Música.
Turisme de Barcelona has presented its candidacy so that the World Travel Alliance (WTA) forum can be held in Barcelona next year.
