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China News Service, July 31 (Lin Wansi) From his original plan to become a construction engineer to founding one of the most well-known Chinese travel companies in Europe, Zhou Hongtu, President of the Fujian Chamber of Commerce in Germany and President of Kaiyuan Travel Group, has witnessed the Internet revolution and the development of the emerging tourism market over the past two decades.

Zhou Hongtu said in an interview with China News Service that the diversification and personalized needs of the tourism market have promoted the innovation and upgrading of the cultural tourism industry. As a practitioner, he is full of confidence in the integration of Chinese and foreign tourism.

Zhou Hongtu, President of the Fujian Chamber of Commerce in Germany and President of Kaiyuan Travel Group. Photo provided by the interviewee

　　Adapt to the development of the times

Zhou Hongtu was born in an ordinary family in Jinjiang, Fujian in 1979. In 1997, Zhou Hongtu was admitted to Tongji University to study architectural engineering. Four years later, he came to Germany and entered the Technical University of Munich to pursue a master's degree in architectural engineering.

Zhou Hongtu observed that new students had to quickly adapt to the teaching methods of German universities and also needed to rent houses. There was also a need for graduates to sell second-hand items. However, there was no communication platform for such information at the time, and communication was very poor.

At that time, the Internet was just starting, but Zhou Hongtu already felt that it would completely change the way of life in the future. International students needed an online platform to communicate in order to better adapt to local life, so Zhou Hongtu founded the Chinese online community - Kaiyuan.com.

Zhou Hongtu introduced that when Kaiyuan.com was first established, it had no commercial considerations and was mainly used to share practical local information in Germany, such as renting, second-hand goods transactions, study experiences, and introductions to German laws and regulations and other topics of concern to international students.

At the end of 2003, Kaiyuan.com received its first commercial advertising business, and Kaiyuan.com began to transform from a simple online forum to a comprehensive portal.

After graduating from the Technical University of Munich in 2005, Zhou Hongtu devoted himself to the work of Kaiyuan.com. In December 2005, Kaiyuan.com was officially registered as a company in Munich, Germany, and Kaiyuan Travel Group was established.

Talking about his entrepreneurial logic, Zhou Hongtu said, "I feel that my entrepreneurship has always been in line with the development of the times. When media traffic reaches a certain scale, it is necessary to find a profitable model. The active popularity of online forums requires the cooperation and accumulation of offline activities, and organizing travel becomes a suitable way."

Tourism business has gradually become the main business of Kaiyuan Travel Group. Zhou Hongtu introduced that Kaiyuan Travel has developed rapidly since 2006. Before that, Kaiyuan.com had accumulated a large amount of online traffic. As soon as Kaiyuan Travel Group launched the travel air ticket business, it obtained a lot of converted users from online, quickly leading the industry. Coupled with continuous online marketing, the business volume of Kaiyuan Travel in one year is almost what traditional travel companies can achieve in 10 years.

In recent years, with the transformation and development of the Internet industry, the forms of networks and social platforms have undergone tremendous changes. Kaiyuan Tourism's customer acquisition channels have evolved from PC website entrances to mobile APP/applets, from search engine keyword traffic to various social media evaluation recommendations, from online platforms to social media to live broadcasts.

"With every change in Internet technology, changes in Kaiyuan Tourism's customer acquisition channels also bring about changes in marketing methods," said Zhou Hongtu.

Zhou Hongtu believes that Kaiyuan Tourism's advantage lies in its ability to reach users directly, understand users' demand for products, and achieve front-end and back-end integration. Combined with its online technology advantages and network promotion and marketing advantages, its tourism business has developed rapidly.

At present, Kaiyuan Travel Group has developed into a comprehensive multinational enterprise group integrating outbound tourism, Chinese media, cross-border e-commerce, cultural education and public welfare funds.

In 2008, after seeing a sharp increase in the demand for outbound travel in China, Zhou Hongtu established a branch in Beijing. Currently, Kaiyuan Travel Group, with its Munich headquarters as its core, has established branches in China, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Vietnam and other countries.

Cultural tourism and sustainable tourism become new trends

With the development of China's economy and the improvement of people's living standards, the demand for outbound tourism has increased significantly.

The "2023-2024 Ctrip Inbound and Outbound Tourism Consumption Trend Insight Report" released by Ctrip Group in May this year shows that the international tourism industry is steadily moving towards recovery. According to official data from the United Nations Tourism Organization, by the end of 2023, the total number of international tourists will be nearly 1.3 billion, recovering to 88% of the same period in 2019. The explosive growth in international travel demand, the steady increase in air transport capacity, and the orderly restart of the global tourism industry supply chain have injected new vitality into the international travel market, indicating that the tourism market may further usher in a comprehensive and vigorous recovery in 2024.

In February this year, the "Annual Report on the Development of China's Outbound Tourism (2023-2024)" released by the China Tourism Academy showed that in 2023, the number of outbound tourists exceeded 87 million, and it was predicted that the number of outbound tourists in 2024 would reach 130 million.

Inbound and outbound tourism business is the development focus of Kaiyuan Travel Group. Zhou Hongtu introduced that Kaiyuan Travel Group, as a comprehensive operator focusing on overseas destination tourism and one of the largest Chinese tourism companies in Europe, needs to provide users with more diversified products according to market changes to better meet user needs.

Zhou Hongtu introduced that in the tourism sector, Kaiyuan Travel Group has launched thousands of rich tourism products, covering various tourism forms including destination bus tours, individual travel, semi-self-guided tours, customized groups, theme tours, business exhibitions, public and business receptions, and performing arts services.

At present, countries including China have introduced a series of convenient measures such as simplifying visas, visa-free entry, increasing flight frequencies, and optimizing payments to promote the recovery and development of the tourism market.

Against this background, Zhou Hongtu observed that cultural tourism, sustainable tourism, etc. are increasingly becoming new development trends.

"As tourists' demand for in-depth cultural experience increases, tourism products are also beginning to shift from simple sightseeing to cultural experience." Zhou Hongtu said that tourists not only want to see beautiful natural landscapes, but also want to understand and participate in local culture, traditions and lifestyles. In addition, tourists' increased awareness of healthy living and environmental protection has made health and sustainable tourism more popular. Tourists are also paying more and more attention to health and wellness tourism projects, choosing low-carbon travel, ecological protection projects and sustainable development destinations.

(For more reporting clues, please contact the author of this article, Lin Wansi: [email protected]) (China News Service APP)

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Editors: Chang Tao and Li Zhongyuan