The Services Chinese Tourists Want, But Aren’t Getting, From Western Hotels

With relatively expensive tastes and a penchant for hotel restaurants, Chinese tourists are most hotels’ dream guests. Tack on the growth potential of this market, which expands every year, and the wisdom in appealing to Chinese travelers becomes obvious.

But many hotels are failing to do so, and most aren’t even trying. Responding to a survey by Hotels.com, Chinese travelers said their past hotel stays had lacked specific services and amenities. They singled out Chinese payment methods and language-compatible staff, literature, and entertainment as the most crucial, ranking each by importance and need for improvement as reflected in the following chart.

Graphic: Hotels.com’s Chinese International Travel Monitor 2013

Only 15 percent of respondents said they prefer to stay in Chinese-style hotels when they travel, which makes these services an important considerations for any domestic hotel chains in Chinese tourists’ destination countries.

For their part, surveyed hoteliers pointed to free Wi-Fi as their most common request from Chinese guests, followed by kettle for tea-making (44 per cent), translated travel guides (41 per cent), smoking rooms (40 per cent), Chinese TV programs (33 per cent), translated hotel website (31 per cent), translated welcome materials (26 per cent) and in house Mandarin speakers (25 per cent).

More than a quarter (27 per cent) of hoteliers have dedicated marketing programs targeting Chinese guests, while a quarter (25 per cent) offer cultural awareness training for staff. Only one in 10 (11 per cent) offer welcome materials in Mandarin.