Approximately
four million Chinese travellers ventured
to Europe in 2011, a number set to grow rapidly in the years ahead.
Using millions of stories shared by these and other
Chinese travellersonline, this study examines what travelling
means to them and how they conceptualise Europe. It is unique in the
way it seeks to understand Chinese travellers to Europe:
combining new, quantitative methods to analyse over
70 million social media posts with qualitative, ‘netnographic’
methods to study central themes in-depth.
China
now has over half a billion internet users, more than twice as many
as the United States of America and representing over a third of the
total population. This has profound implications for
the travel industry. Online travel bookings,
estimated at € 12 billion in 2011, are skyrocketing, with 58%
year-on-year growth according to Emarketer. A number of large
players, notably internet giants Tencent and Baidu, are positioning
themselves to seize a slice of the increasingly competitive
online travel market.
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saleable publications can be ordered from the ETC Infoshop:
For
an overview of the contents of the report, see:
