00:00Paul Charles is CEO of travel consultancy firm the PC Agency. Great to see you and Paul.
00:06So look, Chinese outbound travel to Europe is rebounding strongly. Is this a full recovery or a new travel pattern?
00:15I think it is a new travel pattern and a phase that we're going to see improve over the coming
00:21couple of years.
00:22Essentially, the Chinese market is opening up further. You're seeing greater visa links between China and many new countries, including
00:32the UK, in fact, just last week with an unraveling of formally tight visa rules and restrictions.
00:40And, of course, you've also got more Chinese families wishing to travel to see parts of the world they've not
00:48been to before with higher disposable income, meaning they're able to choose a more luxurious vacation than perhaps generations have
00:57it in the past.
00:57So a combination of factors, greater visa rules, an impressive de-tightening of those rules, as well as families who
01:07are prepared to travel further, I think bodes well for Chinese visitors into the European market.
01:12You mentioned those big spenders and travel spending in Europe grew strongly last year, nearly 10%.
01:18Are European destinations focusing less on attracting large numbers of tourists and more on attracting visitors who spend more and
01:27travel more sustainably?
01:29It depends which part of the market you look at. There's definitely a surge in wanting to attract quality above
01:37quantity in many cases.
01:39There's a feeling among many European destinations that they do not want to have over tourism, which, of course, we've
01:47seen in cities like Barcelona or Amsterdam, where tourists have overrun parts of the city and they're desperate to unravel
01:56those.
01:57So quality of spend is certainly important. And the higher end of the market has been doing very well. The
02:04luxury end of the market is very resilient.
02:06You're seeing airline premium cabins fall from India and from Asia. You're seeing hotels which are charging higher rates because
02:17the demand is there at the higher end.
02:19So undoubtedly it seems to be working, this trend of seeing quality over quantity.
02:25Now, with US demand cooling, do you think that China could become Europe's most important long-haul market again?
02:33I think China will become increasingly important because of the need to see places that have strong heritage, that architecturally
02:43are strong, that culturally are very different to parts of Asia, for example.
02:48And that's why Europe as a whole is very attractive to those coming in from other destinations.
02:54But Europe is obviously concerned about the drop in US visitors and it needs to fill the gap.
03:01It has to fill a vacuum left by fewer US visitors who are coming over partly because of the cost
03:06of living crisis,
03:07but also because they're seeing perhaps more European domestic visitors enter Europe and travel across Europe.
03:16It has to, Europe has to spread. It has to see visitors coming in internationally from different markets.
03:22So the Chinese are as important as other markets.
03:26And certainly with those lighter visa rules, it means that Chinese visitors are happier to travel into Europe much more
03:36easily.
03:37Paul Charles, always a pleasure to talk to you.
03:40This time from Uruguay. Every time we speak to you, it's in another exotic location.
03:43Thank you very much.
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