By Travel Weekly Asia
Published Nov 16, 2023
It looks like Thailand and Japan are no longer flavour of the month when it comes to travel destinations favoured by Chinese tourists.
In its recent quarterly Travel Sentiment Survey of 10,000 Chinese travelers, China Trading Desk, a marketing technology firm, reveals shifting preferences due to concerns over nuclear contamination in Japan and the impact of Chinese crime movies like "No More Bets" depicting violence in Southeast Asia.
Japan dropped from the top destination in the second quarter to the eighth most popular. Similarly, Thailand, which held the top spot earlier this year, now ranks as the sixth most preferred destination in the third quarter.
“In the case of Japan, the recent release of Fukushima’s treated radioactive wastewater into the ocean has significantly affected how Chinese think about traveling there,” explained China Trading Desk founder and CEO Subramania Bhatt. “Eating well is one of Chinese tourists’ most important reasons to travel to new places, and their fears of nuclear-contaminated food has turned one of their most popular destinations into one of their least popular.”
Two popular crime movies playing in Chinese theatres and set in Southeast Asia — ‘No More Bets’ and ‘Lost in the Stars’ — continue to dampen Chinese tourist interest in traveling to Thailand, according to Bhatt.
In ‘Lost in the Stars’, a couple on a trip experiences a chilling plot where the wife mysteriously disappears through a concealed dressing room door, only to be exploited as a human swine in a freak show. This narrative echoes a real-life incident involving the disappearance of a prominent social media influencer in Cambodia, sparking widespread public concern.
On the other hand, ‘No More Bets’ explores gang crime and fraud in Southeast Asia, explicitly stating its basis on tens of thousands of actual fraud cases, providing a shocking glimpse into the extensive overseas online fraud industry. Consequently, these two consecutive films have generated safety concerns among Chinese tourists regarding Southeast Asia.
Singapore, Europe, and South Korea have benefited from the change in Chinese tourist sentiment, becoming the first, second, and third most popular destinations (respectively) in the third quarter. Malaysia and Australia are their fourth and fifth most popular destinations.
The United States and the Middle East, on the other hand, are the two least popular.
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