CEBU, Philippines - Anticipating an influx of Chinese tourists starting this year, the Metro Gaisano chain of department store and supermarkets is preparing to hire Mandarin-speaking sales consultants to specifically attend to this market.
Margaret Gaisano-Ang, whose family owns the Metro Gaisano chain of department stores and supermarket across the Philippines, said that the company recognizes the importance of the Chinese tourists market to the retail sector in the Philippines.
According to Gaisano-Ang, the number one interest of Chinese travelers is shopping, thus they are considered as one of the high-spender tourists to date.
“Shopping here is cheap for them. We are looking for sales people who speak Mandarin because of the Chinese market,” Gaisano-Ang said.
If not, Metro Gaisano chain will train sales people to learn Mandarin, in order to effective communicate with the Chinese travelers, especially that most of them do not speak or understand English.
The expected invasion of Chinese tourists to the Philippines, especially Cebu with the establishment of regular chartered flights from Guangzou to Cebu, is seen to fuel the retail sector.
Gaisano-Ang said Metro Gaisano chain, is taking advantage of this opportunity to immediately install “Chinese-tourists” friendly facilities in their stores, including the provision of Mandarin-speaking sales assistants.
Chinese tourists are not only regarded as “shopaholic” tourists, splurging on shopping, but they are also known as the invest-consumers, who buy bulk of products, for business purposes back home.
A travel expenditure of one Chinese tourist is equivalent to four to five tourists combined. This means, that Chinese visitors spend more than the traditional foreign tourists.
“Chinese [travelers] are either tourists or investors, they buy in bulk, that’s why in Hong Kong we call them ‘invest-consumers,” a Hong Kong based economist earlier said.
Gaisano-Ang, who also owns a travel agency, the Grand Holiday Travel and Tour Inc., said that Cebu is ready to accommodate the influx of Chinese tourists, starting this year.
DOT record showed that in 2004, there were only a total of 32 thousand Chinese travelers visited the Philippines. The figure ballooned to over 200 thousand last year, with the active promotion of the Philippines to attract Chinese tourists in different areas in China.
Each year, an average of 1.5 million to 1.3 million Chinese travels outside their country, large number of these travelers to go Thailand, as it has effectively marketed its tourism attractions to the Chinese market far way ahead than the Philippines.
Record showed that about 1.3 billion Chinese (and growing) is now starting to travel. About 50 million to 100 million can now afford to travel outside of their country, and regarded as the one of the highest tourist spenders.
Source: The Freeman Cebu
