The tourism domain has represented, for a long time, one of the main sources of revenue for the different destinations that have awarded a special focus to its development and enrichment. Its types of impacts, whether economic, social, or environmental, bring both great benefits and pose a certain level of risk. Regardless of the latter, people will be always willing to travel to get to know new cultures, and there will always be competition between destinations at the time of attracting and maintaining tourism flows. The last decades have been marked by the emergence of a new tourist flow (i.e., the Chinese outbound segment), which brings great economic potential to the Central and Eastern Europe region. To this end, this chapter focuses on presenting the current situation of the presence of the Chinese segment within CEE and some of the specificities of their tourist consumer behavior.
TopIntroduction
The evolution of tourism in the last decade transformed this activity step by step and to an increasing extent, from an alternative of spending free time to a complex industry, with economic and social effects, outlined on the human community.
In the current context of world economic development, there is an increase in the number of participants to the touristic movement, but also in the number of countries, amplifying its contribution to social economic development and claiming, at the same time, adaptations to the new requirements of the tourist clientele. Therefore, it is all about the promotion and development of tourism forms that meet specific needs of well-defined market segments, like youth tourism, business tourism, ecotourism etc.
The chapter starts by presenting a general overview on tourism, its forms and importance within the general economic framework. The following step of the chapter is aimed at providing an in-depth analysis of the Chinese outbound segment, in terms of tourism flow, tourism expenditure, and tourism expectations. The third major part of the article contains a description of the presence of the incoming Chinese tourism segment on the Central and Eastern European market.
This chapters aims at thoroughly describing the outbound segment of an emerging market of great potential – the Chinese tourists. The second main objective is to provide an overview on the presence of outbound Chinese tourists on the Central Eastern European market, with a view towards finding directions of action for the Romanian tourism stakeholders. Given the ever greater importance of the Chinese tourists, in terms of both international flows and expenditure, i.e. potential revenue for the host destinations, the incoming segment from the above mentioned country is of great benefit and should receive special focus from the Romanian authorities, agents and providers of services.