Current information about Chinese tourism

Updated April 2024

Finland's position in the market

Finland is known as the happiest country, a Nordic country, a country with good education system, the hometown of Santa Claus, and a destination for aurora hunting; Finland is still considered as a niche destination; Finland is a destination which could offer once-in-a-lifetime experience. With the fast recovery of outbound educational travel in general and popularity of Finnish education, the demand for educational travel to Finland is very strong. Finland is considered as a popular destination for edu travel of kids.

Iceland, Norway, Swedish Lapland are the major competitors from the Nordic in the winter time. But there are also many multi-destination products going to many places in Nordic in the same trip. New Zealand, Australia and North America could also be competitors for Finland in the winter season. In the summer, we are mainly competing with other European countries as well as Nordic countries. For educational travel, we are mainly competing with traditional edu travel destinations like UK, Australia, New Zealand, US, etc. in both school holidays.

The current flight recovery status from China to Finland:

Finnair
Shanghai-Helsinki, 3 times a week
HK-Helsinki, daily flight, 7 times a week

JuneYao Airlines
Shanghai-Helsinki, 4 flights a week
Zhengzhou-Helsinki, once a week

In 2019, Finnair operated flights from Beijing (two airports), Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Hongkong, to Helsinki. JuneYao operated in Shanghai and Zhengzhou. Tibet Airlines had Jinan-Helsinki route. Sichuan Airlines opened Chengdu-Helsinki route.

The recovery of flight capacity between China - Finland is among the slowest recovered international destinations. The current recovery is around 30% capacity compared with 2019 level. The slow recovery of flight capacity isn't a good sign for Finland's image in the market for both the consumers and travel trade professionals. The average flight recovery rate between China and European destinations was over 60% in the end of 2023, compared with pre-pandemic level.

Visit Finland have two social media channels in China, which are Weibo (@芬兰旅游局) and WeChat (芬兰旅游局). And VF opened video account on WeChat Channels (video oriented SoMe channel and new function of WeChat) and it brought extra visibilities as well as new followers. Other Business Finland units and Team Finland players are also active in marketing in Chinese social media channels. Finland as the happiest country and Finnish education could generate quite nice exposures and discussions in the social media. Santa and Aurora are always popular topics in the winter and Christmas time.

Consumer trends and behavior 

China lifted up all the travel restrictions only in February of 2023. However, till 2024 New Year Holidays, the amount of border crossings by Chinese recovered to the pre-pandemic level. Domestic travel is very popular. In major public holidays, major tourist destinations in China are fully occupied by travelers. In past 2024 Chinese New Year Holiday, the amount of travellers were even bigger than 2019 level.

The recovery of Chinese travelers in certain outbound destinations are highly depending on the flight recovery situation. Destinations in Asia are still more popular and some countries in middle east even had more Chinese tourists in past months. Italy, France, UK, New Zealand also had nice amount of Chinese tourists and good recovery of travel income.

Social media platforms, especially emerging ones, like Tik Tok and The Red Book in China have become the major platforms for dreaming/seeding phase of destinations. Short video contents become the main contents for media consumption. And, social media channels are also platforms for buying products including travel packages/products, especially hotel deals, attraction tickets, etc, through live streaming events.

Most of the bookings are digitalized. OTAs including Ctrip, Meituan, Fliggy, Mafengwo, etc. are the major platforms for travel bookings. Traditional TAs also operate their own shops on OTA (OTS) platforms. Most of players (OTA, TA, travel brands) invest heavily in their own social media channels, which don’t only serve as a marketing channel but also a booking channel with e-commerce functions. Consumers would use multiple channels (apps) to collect information and compare the offerings before making the actual booking. It is also common for travelers to buy flight, hotel or attraction entrance ticket coupons (refundable) when OTAs or brands are on sale, before they have a “concrete" travel plan.

Digitalization is even developed after the pandemic in travel context. Touchless experience is preferred in accommodation, restaurant, or other services. Consumers prefer shorter-period trips (weekend trip or short-distance trip). However, if they travel to a long-haul(comparably) destination (even domestic), they would rather stay for a longer period time.

Consumers in China are looking forward to the nature, Aurora, exotic accommodation, snow fun, winter experience, ski, etc, in Finland. Winter Lapland is a big thing for the market, still. Educational travel products (camps, real-classroom experience, forest/nature tours) in Finland are very welcomed by Chinese parents.

In order to serve or attract Chinese travelers in the future, you could consider:

• To speed up the digitalization in booking and service; to enhance the presence and supply on digital platforms (OTA, metasearch, etc)
• To produce quality digital promotional materials like short videos for social media platforms
• To have flexibility for change of itinerary or cancellation policy
• To establish the contacts with Chinese travel trade

Industry update and distribution channels

The outbound travel industry have gone through some restructures and re-shaping. Some previous market leaders faded away and new players join the competitions. wholesaler model (especially doing only certain regions, like Nordic) faces big challenges due to lack of resources (like flight capacity, accommodation, etc.) or rising costs.

Many tour opeators are focusing on tailor-made services for their high spending clients, which means they value more revenues than volumes. In 2024, the outbound industry is getting more normalized and more supply of products are pushed to the market. Lacking of flight resources from certain departure cities in China is still the biggest bottleneck for the travel trade to sell more Finnish overnights to the travelers with their products.

Main distribution channels (biggest TOs)

• OTAs: Ctrip, Dianping, Fliggy, LY.com, Mafengwo, Tuniu, etc
• Traditional TOs: ETI, Utour, CYTS, CITS, Jinjiang Travel, Spring Travel, GZL, Premium Holidays, Wing On Travel, etc.

Incoming agencies offer package products to travel agencies in China by collecting services from different service providers including accommodation, transportation (bus and cruise), activities, attractions. Due to the language barrier and payment term, Chinese TA/TO, especially players with big volume (mass group) tend to work with incoming agencies instead of making the booking directly. However, it is also common for smaller or tailor-made agencies to make some of the bookings directly from first-hand service providers to optimize the revenues.

Finland travel USP's

Easy access to the forests, Santa Claus, The land of Thousand Lakes, Lapland are the most relevant USP's.

The image of Finland in China market as a destination for Aurora hunting and hometown of Santa Claus is quite solid. The Happiest Country is also quite well-known title of Finland in the market. The image of Finland as a winter destination with exotic accommodation, Aurora hunting, and hometown of Santa Claus has proven to drive the decision making for the consumers in the market.

Finnish educational system brings many positive PR and social media buzz, which makes Finnish educational travel product quite popular among Chinese families.

Stong themes:

• Educational travel (camps in school holidays, weekend product) is a must-have thing for most of families in China.
• Winter Sports is a rapidly growing theme in the market after 2022 Beijing Olympics was hold. Ski (downhill mainly) has become a new hobby for many and ski holiday becomes extremely popular.
• Outdoor and glamping are also getting popular as people would like to be close to the nature after the pandemic started.
• Sports travel is becoming more and more popular and could be a major drive for people to travel for the sports related events like trail run, marathon, biking, iron-man, etc.

The industry has started to have discussions around sustainability and many destinations are promoting sustainability in the market. Some associations are formed by travel agencies and travel advisors with a theme of sustainability. Bigger players are needed to be included into the discussion in order to get more attentions among the consumers. Chinese government has a clear goal for carbon neutralization which will push forward the development of sustainability in travel industry from a macro level.

Future outlook and upcoming season

In 2024, the goal of Chinese government is to have at least 80% recovery of international flight capacity than 2019. Many destinations are having good amount of flight connections and can expect more travel income by Chinese travelers, although the amount of travelers can't reach same level of pre-pandemic year.

Summer 2024 we have all kinds of products coming back to Nordic countries and Finland. Classic products like tour of 4 Nordic countries will bring overnights to Finland, especially in Helsinki regions. Edu travel groups (kids) will travel to schools and camps in Finland and experience the Finnish education in different regions. Also there are summer Lapland and Lakeland products available in the market for the travelers. The estimated recovery rate of Chinese overnights in Finland in the summer season will be about 40-50% of 2019 level.

Travel agencies in major cities are still very interested in Winter Lapland. The past January and February, Chinese did well with Lapland, considering the limited resources, high price and limited sales period. Many companies will start to scout for resources and try to have more to sell for the next winter in Lapland as soon as possible. But the flight resources and uncertain sales price as well as policy of airlines might hold back the demand. Edu travel organizers also have ambitious plans for next winter season to send more student groups to Finland.