A Chinese man stands next to his luxury car as its is parked in an upscale shopping district on May 29, 2015, in Beijing, China. (Photo : Getty Images)
China’s affluent travelers, the world’s biggest spenders in the global luxury industry, are switching from luxury goods like Chanel bags and Rolex watches to local cuisine, according to a recent Asian luxury travel report.
The report, which was released at the 10th Luxury Travel Market exhibition in Shanghai, interviewed more than 5,300 wealthy travelers across Asia over the past two months and tracked their consumption spending.
It revealed that despite the increasing desire and interest among respondents to "travel more luxuriously in the near future," exploring local cuisines has overtaken splurges at shopping outlets for the first time, the China Daily reported on Friday.
"The way I see it is that they are spending more time and money sniffing out and enjoying certain cuisines or restaurants," Amrita Banta, managing director of consultancy firm Agility Research & Strategy, told China Daily. "They're no long grabbing a Starbucks and having luxury shopping as their main agenda."
"It's not that they are not shopping. But high-end shopping isn't that much of a different experience, whether you are walking into a Chanel store in Hong Kong or in Tokyo," she said.
Banta added that unique and "culturally choreographed" experiences are now in vogue in both the luxury and non-luxury travel sectors.
The report defines wealthy travelers from China as those earning a minimum annual household income of 200,000 yuan ($30,390). Among the interviewees, half had an income above 350,000 yuan and 10 percent make more than 1 million yuan a year.
Yang Ji, manager of China Travel Service Group's Chongqing branch, said that food-themed trips, especially those involving Michelin-starred restaurants, are highly popular in the region, while shopping malls and outlets are no longer a "must-see" on the itinerary.
"I think it's mainly a result of the rise of luxury e-commerce sites, saving travelers more time and effort so they can do the real tourist activities," he said.
Yang, however, said he believes the category of rich travelers should apply to those with even deeper pockets, as luxury trips they organize usually start from 100,000 yuan per trip for each person.
According to a Chinese luxury travel analysis released by the Hurun Report in 2015, less than 30 percent of luxury travelers arranged trips on their own.
Japanese cuisine, followed by shopping in France and sightseeing in Australia, is top preference of China's super rich, who spend 200,000 yuan on traveling every year, according to the report. It found that half of them originate from China's rich second generation or are young entrepreneurs.
Around 215 billion yuan were spent by Chinese outbound tourists in the past year, up 53 percent from the year earlier, and taking the lion's share in global travel consumption spending.
He Jia, deputy editor-in-chief of Chinese travel magazine Niche Travel, said that the growing appetite of Chinese tourists for cuisine is due partly because of, like shopping, it's "an easy habit."
"You don't need to get a certificate or hire a coach to enjoy food. All you need is a tongue," she said, although adding that as tourists' tastes become more sophisticated, their interests might diverge even more.
