Mafengwo Report on Young Chinese Travelers 2024

Do young Chinese only travel for the selfies? Are group tours totally out of style? Are they too broke to enjoy travel? Mafengwo’s July 2024 report, titled “Just say no to labels”, challenges common myths and assumptions about how young Chinese travel, based on platform and survey data.

We’ve translated the full report into English. Click here for the original version in Chinese.

Sharing the trip on social media is low on the list of things that young Chinese anticipate most about the travel experience, chosen by only 24.2%. Instead, travelers are more excited about the landscapes (86.4%) and cultures (85.3%) they’ll experience and escaping the pressures of daily life (81.2%).

Going online to find travel companions is known as a trend for young Chinese, but actually it’s only the norm for 2.9%. Most prefer to travel with family or their partner (44.2%) or with friends, classmates, or colleagues (33.7%).

Notable for the outbound tourism industry, 27.7% of young Chinese in Mafengwo’s survey said they would join a group tour for international travel, as a safety precaution.

How much are budgetary constraints holding back young Chinese from traveling? 29.4% said not having enough money was the biggest obstacle to travel, but lack of time was a bigger obstacle, chosen by 47.5%.

Food is a very important part of the travel experience for young Chinese. Local dining recommendations are the type of information they’re most likely to look for when planning a trip, chosen by 78.4%. At the same time, two-thirds said that they’re willing to increase their budgets to eat well while traveling.

While crowds were the biggest pre-travel worry for domestic destinations (chosen by 58.5%), for outbound travel young Chinese are most likely to worry about personal safety (61.8%). Other concerns for outbound travel included losing their valuables (12.3%) and unfriendly locals (8.9%). Travelers worried about being cheated on both domestic (15.3%) and outbound (11.4%) trips.