Sunday 26 August 2012

Getting Chinese Tourists To The Market

Melbourne retailers quickly learned that the influx of Japanese tourists in the late 60's and early 70's was a ripe opportunity and tourist buses flourished as they linked eager Japanese tourists with retailers.

Today, Chinese tourists are becoming the focus but the tourist bus connection has become a little more complicated. Just like their Japanese predecessors, Chinese tourists don't always have good English language skills and they rely on pre-organised tours and activities to determine what and where they visit in Melbourne.

When it comes to tours, a few people need to make money out of the process. There is the tour wholesaler who promotes the tour in China, the tour operator in Melbourne and probably a few others in between. You need to have a tour that can support commissions and obviously tour operators will go where the money is. Anyway, without getting too involved in the complexities of modern tours it is quite possible that a large number of Chinese tourists will leave Melbourne without ever hearing about the Queen Victoria Market and that is a real problem.

What is the solution? One of our traders is a regular traveller to China, has an understanding of Chinese culture and has some advice (thanks Simon). If we can't make an effective entry into the commissionable tour market we need to make sure that QVM is featured on in-flight videos. That way, tourists will be informed about the QVM and more likely to put us on their visit list.