While Lower Mainland hotels position themselves to profit from an increase in leisure travel from China, their counterparts on Vancouver Island could be missing out on a golden opportunity.
That’s the fear of one Parksville hotelier, who returned recently from a trip to China convinced that the Island’s tourism sector needs to ramp up its marketing efforts if it wants to cash in on the flow of Chinese tourist dollars coming B.C.’s way.
“Regional DMOs [destination marketing organizations] have missed the boat,” said Shawna Broekhuizen, general manager of the Beach Club Resort.
In 2009, China announced Canada would be granted approved destination status (ADS), and in June 2010 the governments of Canada and China signed a memorandum of understanding formalizing the relationship.
To date, almost all travel from China to Canada has been for government, business or study. That is already starting to change, thanks to ADS, which allows Chinese tour operators to include Canada when booking group tours.
“Now we have his new component, which is leisure travel from China,” said Cindy Gobin, Tourism BC’s Asia marketing development manager. “And we have two distinct segments. One is very sophisticated, high-end travellers, and the other one is the ADS tour groups.”
While the new owners of the Comfort Inn Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond will be going after the tour groups, Broekhuizen said her resort wants to attract the more sophisticated, adventurous, moneyed traveller.
If she can get Chinese travel agents to put Vancouver Island on its list of destinations, she estimates her resort might see about 125 to 150 visitors per year.
“Even though that doesn’t seem like a lot, what they’re spending is way more than what the average tour bus does,” she said.
Chinese tourists with ADS tour groups typically only spend $66 per day, Broekhuizen said, while the independent traveller spends $300 to $400 a day.
According to Statistics Canada, there were 47,608 entries from China between January and April 2011. That’s a 15.8% increase over the same period last year.
Local hoteliers expect those numbers to steadily grow. Lawrence Lim of Mayfair Commercial RE Advisors Inc. recently brokered the sale of Richmond’s Comfort Inn to a Chinese investor who plans to market the hotel to the ADS travel operators.
“It shows the kind of interest that Chinese investors are showing on hotel properties, especially in Richmond, as a result of ADS,” Lim said. “The whole idea is to morph into a new market, which is in anticipation of the group tours that will be coming from China as a result of the approval of the ADS.”
Fairmont Hotels was courting Chinese travellers long before ADS was approved and is already seeing an increase in bookings from Chinese travellers.
“It’s easily up 200%, off a very small base,” said Graeme Benn, Fairmont’s regional director of sales and marketing. “I think we’re going to see significant growth every single year.”
Fairmont, which has four hotels in the Vancouver area, already has strong brand recognition in China. Fairmont has three hotels in China, the most notable one being the Fairmont Peace Hotel in Shanghai.
A typical Chinese tourist will stay in Canada an average of 10 to 12 days and will want to visit Niagra Falls, Ottawa and the Rocky Mountains. They are expected to spend a couple of days in the Vancouver area, however, before fanning out to other parts of Canada. And while they are here, they will be shopping.
“The Chinese travellers are very big shoppers,” Gobin said.
Ice wine, maple syrup and luxury items top the list of souvenirs they are after.
Hotels that plan to capture the Chinese leisure travel market may need to make some adjustments to menus and provide some signage in Chinese – as well as desk clerks who speak Mandarin. Vancouver hotels are already well-positioned in that regard.
“Those are the kinds services and support that Vancouver has [already], which is a very, very unique situation,” Benn said.
Vancouver Island hotels, by contrast, may have to work a little harder if they want to attract Chinese travellers to the island.
Broekhuizen went to China in May at the invitation of the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance. While there, she met with a number of Chinese tour operators, tourism and sports organizations – all of whom were keen to come to Vancouver Island to scout it out.
But before Chinese travel agencies will consider putting Vancouver Island on their map, the Island’s tourism and hospitality industry needs to put on a familiarization (“fam”) tour, in which the operators would be brought to the Island for a first-hand look at the accommodations and attractions.
Broekhuizen said local, provincial and Canadian tourism commissions need to be on board to help fund the familiarization tours. So far, though, she hasn’t been able to get the financial commitment needed to set up a fam tour.