by Ilja Pankow, Gran Melia, Shanghai
The number of millionaires in China rose by 6.1 percent to 875,000 last year due to China’s strong economic performance and a rebound in asset prices, the latest Hurun Wealth Report said this week.
For the European and the global tourism industry, this means that there are a lot of possibilities for new tourists starting travelling right now. More and more of the wealthy Chinese can now start in a new world for them. They have the money and with the increasingly liberal travel laws in China they also have the possibility and the wish to go overseas.
Also the number of Chinese business travellers are likely grow dramatically in the near future. A Chinese company is now the new owner of Volvo, the traditional car factory in Europe, and many more deals are in the pipeline. In past years European and American companies travelled to China and started businesses there. These days the Chinese are starting to come to the world as buyers!
The European hotel industry has to check their services and offers because the Chinese travellers have a lot of money but also a lot of different needs.
Chinese travellers like to eat Chinese food, and this throughout the day. That means that the hotels will have to bring their kitchens and their service to this new level.
Shanghai came in third in the number of millionaires with 122,000 of them, following Beijing and Guangzhou, the minimum threshold for inclusion being 10 million yuan (USD 1.5 million).
The number of rich people in these three cities accounted for 48 percent of the mainland’s total, according to the Hurun Wealth Report, which is best known for its China Rich List.
“The rise in the number of millionaires is driven by the increase in property prices, especially for luxury properties, as well as the recovery in the stock market,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and chief researcher of the Hurun Institute.
The average age of China’s wealthy is 39 years old, 15 years younger than their counterparts outside China, and their wealth is growing more rapidly. They made their money primarily from the service, property and manufacturing sectors and the stock market. Their rising fortune is spurring an appetite for new luxury diversions for yachts, travel and private jets, the report said.
“China’s millionaires are becoming sophisticated in the way they spend their money”, Hoogewerf underlined. They also like to travel and to explore the world.
