Your next stay may be in a Chinese-owned hotel – even if you don’t know it. A full-capacity crowd at the ITB Berlin Convention listened captivated to the examples of recent Chinese moves to snap up large chunks of the hospitality properties market and the real estate market in general in many parts of the world.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of the organizing COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, pointed out that many of the more than 30 million Chinese outbound trips beyond Hong Kong and Macau in 2012 included shopping not only for branded goods and health products, but also for hotels, villas and tourism companies.

Outbound Foreign Direct Investment from China on a government level is responsible for many new conference centers, harbor facilities and highways for instance on many Caribbean islands, driven by the “soft power” motive to push further back the influence of Taiwan in the region, as Dr. Adam Wu, COO of China Business Network showed with several examples. Private affluent Chinese investors, facing increasingly string regulations in the local market, however buy real estate outside China mainly in search for safe havens for their money and the provision of emergency escape routes coming with the resident visa attached to property deals in many countries.

With the number of Chinese outbound travels soon reaching 100 million and growth rates in 2012 in many destinations of 50% and more, Chinese hotel groups and even airlines are building up their portfolio in accommodation, transport and retail companies catering to the specific needs of Chinese customers in key destinations. “Were state-owned government companies lead to”, Prof. Arlt said, “Chinese private investors are quick to follow”.

Another panelist of the COTRI workshop, Prof. Dr. Gerd Schwandner, mayor of Oldenburg City in Germany, added examples of Chinese investors purchasing tree farms in Germany. Dr. Karlheinz Steinmueller, Scientific director of Z_punkt The Forecasting Company, pointed out that the demographic development will soon push the average age of the Chinese affluent traveller up, resulting in changing consumption patterns and yet again new investment opportunities.

Chinese tourists are already dominating the demand side in many destinations, now the Chinese investors seem to start to extend the domination also to the supply side.

Please contact us in case of Copyright Infringement of the photo sourced from the internet, we will remove it within 24 hours.