It starts out well, or well-meaning at least. Chinese outbound tourism is the fastest and biggest growing sector in travel, as outbound tourists rose to 70.3 million in 2011, and are expected to rise to 82 million this year, up 17%. And everyone wants these hordes of Chinese travelers spending money, especially the recession and debt crisis beset European countries.
It starts out well, or well-meaning at least. Chinese outbound tourism is the fastest and biggest growing sector in travel, as outbound tourists rose to 70.3 million in 2011, and are expected to rise to 82 million this year, up 17%. And everyone wants these hordes of Chinese travelers spending money, especially the recession and debt crisis beset European countries.
From hotels, airports, malls, and retailers hiring Manadarin speaking concierge services, to countries easing visa norms and doing joint marketing agreements with China, the efforts run the gamut. And most of the time, in the name of being sensitive to the Chinese cultural needs, some tourism organizations and companies resort to cultural shorthands, or cliches, while dealing with the guests.
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For instance, Switzerland, a sophisticated tourism marketer as far as countries go, is in a Chinese marketing overdrive: As its mainstay German travelers are shying away, Chinese are among the fastest-growing groups, populating the Alps and buying its famous and pricey watches.
It recently came out with detailed norms and guidelines for its hotel industry on working with Chinese travelers, titled “Swiss Hospitality for Chinese Guests.” And the document, while very detailed and useful, resorts to plenty of cliches about Chinese culture in general, some surely useful, and some borderline offensive. We’ve extracted the best below:
