Chinese tourists unwilling to pay extra for sustainable travel options even as concern about climate change on the rise, McKinsey and Trip.com report says
- Chinese tourism industry is large enough to take the lead in advancing the sustainability agenda, McKinsey partner says
- Mainland China is expected to have the largest tourism market by 2032
Data from McKinsey, which surveyed a total of 5,457 respondents from 13 countries including China, the United States, India and Saudi Arabia, showed that more than 60 per cent of Chinese travellers were worried about climate change and believed that commercial aviation should become carbon neutral in the future, putting China near the top among the countries surveyed.
A separate survey conducted by Trip.com last year showed that almost 85 per cent of Chinese travellers rated sustainable travel as important or very important.
However, compared to travellers from other countries, Chinese tourists are reluctant to pay a premium for sustainable travel. Only 20 per cent of surveyed Chinese tourists said they would pay 2 per cent extra for carbon-neutral airline tickets, ranking near the bottom among the countries surveyed, according to a whitepaper jointly published by McKinsey and Trip.com on Wednesday examining the environmental impact of China’s tourism sector.
“The Chinese tourism industry is large enough to take the lead in advancing the sustainability agenda,” Jonathan Woetzel, senior partner at McKinsey, said in a statement on Wednesday. “As travellers resume their adventures, each step of their journey presents opportunities to make choices and take concrete actions that could immediately reduce their environmental footprint.”
The whitepaper came the same day China announced it would reopen its borders to foreign tourists after nearly three years of Covid-19 restrictions. The country had started allowing Chinese tourists to travel abroad in January.
