High-income earners do not like travel far, survey

American Express on Tuesday released the result of a survey on Chinese high-income earners’ traveling behavior. The result shows that in 2005, 85% of the interviewees traveled within China, while only 18% chose to go abroad to spend their holidays.

Beijing became the most popular travel destination for these people in 2005, which was also the second consecutive year for Beijing to be selected as the hottest tourist city in China. Besides Beijing, travelers also opt for Shanghai, Guilin, Sanya or Hangzhou.

Interestingly, it is found in the survey that most high-income earners like to select a city not far from their residential place to have their vacation. In the survey, 18% of tourists in Shanghai went to Hangzhou, making it the most popular site for Shanghai people. Likewise, 16% of people in Hangzhou went to Shanghai. Similarly, 19% of people in Shenyang went to Dalian. For tourists in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, although their most popular destination is Beijing, a large number of them went to Guilin.

The survey shows that when traveling abroad, many Chinese tourists often spend much time and money in shopping, which indicates that apart from sightseeing, shopping has become a main activity for Chinese tourists abroad.

In domestic tours, most people in Beijing like to travel to Shanghai, as the survey shows that over 10% of the Beijing interviewees went to Shanghai recently. When going abroad, Beijingners like to go to South Korea. Information from the survey shows that one out of four tourists in Beijing recently picked South Korea for their holidays.