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Chinese tourists abroad prove demanding customers

There was near-pandemonium at the L'Oreal cosmetics counter. With only hours before the end of their weeklong National Day holiday earlier this month, a busload of package tourists from China descended on a department store in Singapore and began clamoring for all the skin refiner and "wrinkle de-crease" they could buy.

Karen Eu, one of three clerks attending to them, opened her eyes wide in exasperation.

"Oh, my God," she said as she carried another fistful of Chinese yuan to the cash register. "They talk so loud I have to yell until my throat hurts."

China's rapid economic growth has fostered a tourist boom among the Chinese, with Southeast Asia the favorite destination, at least for now. The surge in package tour groups from China is also giving rise to an unflattering stereotype: the loud, rude and culturally naive Chinese tourist.

Sound familiar? The tide of travelers from China mirrors the emergence of virtually every group of overseas tourists since the Romans, from Britons behaving badly in the Victorian era and ugly Americans in postwar Europe to the snapshot-happy Japanese of the 1980s.

So it is not much of a surprise that tourists from China, often going abroad for the first time, are leaving similar complaints in their wake.

But China is also manufacturing its own twist on the age-old tale, as became apparent in July when a group of more than 300 from China took umbrage at illustrations of a pig's face on their check-in vouchers at a casino resort in Malaysia.

Although the resort said the drawings were meant only to distinguish their Chinese guests from Muslims, who cannot eat pork (or gamble), the Chinese demonstrated their pique by staging a sit-in in the hotel lobby and belting out their national anthem. It took 40 police officers with dogs to clear them out.

Earlier that month, a group of Chinese tourists staged a similar protest on a flight to Hong Kong from Bangkok after a departure delay kept them from making a day trip in Singapore.

So far, only an estimated 2 percent of China's population ventures abroad each year, according to a recent report on China tourism by CLSA Emerging Markets in Hong Kong. But the World Tourism Organization predicts that China will become the world's fourth-largest source of overseas tourists by 2020.

Groups from China began traveling to Europe last year. And if the US agrees to grant visas to China's tourists, analysts say it will undoubtedly be a top draw.

Clean and safe, Singapore, with its large Mandarin-speaking population, attracts more Chinese tourists than any of its neighbors. Some are newly rich from big cities, and stay in five-star hotels. Benefiting from rising incomes and more direct air connections, however, an increasing majority comes from the new middle class in provincial capitals.

The typical visit to Singapore is just three days. Most tourists from China sign up for US$250 package tours that whisk them through as many as five countries in a week.

Many of these tours are what the industry calls "zero-dollar tours," providing no profit margin. Instead, the agents make their money by diverting their groups to jewelers or restaurants that give them a commission on sales.

Unlike Westerners or Japanese who splurge on expensive resorts and spend their entire vacation sunbathing, some analysts say, the Chinese devote a greater proportion of their holiday time to sightseeing and shopping.

China's tourists stand apart from other tourists in other ways, say members of Singapore's hospitality industry.

"They're more demanding," said Johnson Lim, who handles groups from China for a local travel agency.

Boon Sang Lip, a souvenir stand operator, put it more bluntly.

"They like to talk in a loud and not-very-polite way," he said as a group of tourists from Xian mobbed his assistant for lighters in the shape of Singapore's emblem, the Merlion.

When they check into hotels, for instance, many Chinese tourists demand the top floors, Lim said. Some feel entitled to take souvenirs like hotel pillows, he said.

None of this would come as a surprise to anyone who has traveled through China. In a nation of 1.3 billion people, getting where you want to go often means literally pushing someone else out of the way.

For all the challenges, China's tourist migrations represent a lucrative source of income that countries like Singapore are vying to attract. Casinos are one case in point. With casinos illegal in China, virtually every trip abroad includes such a visit. Gambling losses by Chinese nationals overseas amount to US$72 billion a year, according to CLSA.

"Chinese love to gamble," Lim said.
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