China's rich prefer Paris over the US - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

The Wall Street Journal has more details of the earlier released Hurun report about how China's rich spend their money while traveling. Tension with France have been forgotten, as Paris has become their most favorite destination. The Hurun report is produced by Rupert Hoogewerf.

With increasing wealth comes a desire to travel further afar and to spend more of their vacations in foreign lands. International travel has risen 10% in the past two years, with China’s rich going overseas three times a year on average; 20% of these millionaires go abroad more than five times a year. They’re doing so more for leisure than for business—holiday time abroad was up 10% compared with 2009, Hurun said.

The most popular foreign destination was France, surpassing the U.S. for the first time. Australia, Japan and the Maldives ranked third through fifth, respectively. Domestically,Sanya—China’s equivalent to Hawaii — ranked No. 1, with Hong Kong and the southwestern province of Yunnan coming in second and third.

Of course, shopping is another reason these millionaires are traveling. Chinese tourists are now the world’s biggest spenders, according to statistics compiled by Global Blue, a financial-services firm that specializes in managing tax-free purchases between merchants and foreign customers world-wide. For the year ending March 2011, travelers from China made up 17% of sales among the 270,000 shops tracked by Global Blue, more than those from Russia (16%) and far more than tourists from the U.S. (5%).

More in The Wall Street Journal

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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