By: George Dooley

Visa Inc. offers some good news for the travel industry in its new 2011 Travel Snapshot report. The report highlights key spending insights from Visa account holders traveling to and from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

Credit card giant Visa reports account holders from these countries continued to increase spending on international travel-related purchases from 2010 to 2011, building momentum toward pre-recession levels according to VisaVue Travel data. Travelers from the United States increased tourism spending on their Visa accounts by seven percent, those from Canada by 11 percent, and Mexico by 19 percent.

Most notably, travelers from Brazil increased international travel spend on their Visa accounts by 32 percent in 2011 – 43 percent of which was in the United States, Visa reports.

“Visa works closely with governments and tourism entities to connect merchants to the more than 2.3 billion Visa global account holders and provides a convenient, secure and reliable payment experience for international travelers,” said Ava Kelly, head of global affluent and cross border initiatives at Visa Inc.

“Tourism is a key contributor to economic growth so this upward trend in international travel expenditures can provide some welcome revenues for growing countries like Mexico and Brazil as well as the U.S. and Canada.”

Travel Spending Trends:
•    United States: Brazil and China proved to be significant corridors for travel to the United States. Visa account holders from Brazil increased spending on travel to the United States by 41 percent, from $1.9 billion in 2010 to $2.7 billion in 2011, edging out the U.K. as the second highest total contributor to U.S. tourism revenue. Visa account holders from China increased travel spend within the United States by 61 percent, from $741 million in 2010 to $942 million in 2011. Similarly, Visa account holders from the United States increased travel spend in China by 27 percent, from $741 million in 2010 to $941 million in 2011.
•    Canada: While Visa account holders from the United States ($3.5 billion), France ($351 million) and the United Kingdom ($348 million) remained the top three contributors to Canadian tourism, Visa account holders from China had one of the most significant increases with a 41 percent increase year over year, from $229 million in 2010 to $321 million in 2011.
•    Mexico: Visa account holders increased spending in Mexico by six percent in 2011. While Russian account holders increased travel spending in Mexico by 73 percent, travelers from South America also showed more interest in Mexico with Argentina (+58 percent), Brazil (+56 percent), Peru (+30 percent) and Colombia (+30 percent) following Russia with the greatest increases in travel spend to Mexico in 2011.
•    Brazil: While the United States remains the top destination of choice for Visa account holders from Brazil, most European nations recognized double digit increases in travel spend by Brazilian Visa account holders in 2011. Spending by Brazilian Visa account holders increased by 30 percent in France, 44 percent in Italy and 41 percent in the United Kingdom.

Rudest Nations In The World

SINGAPORE – A poll conducted by international travel search site reveals the French have taken the title as the rudest nation in the world. Taking 19% of the vote, the French have been known by many of their European neighbors for their abrupt and curt nature, especially when dealing with foreign tourists, which has often been taken as rudeness by visitors.

However, surprisingly China was ranked fifth in the poll, deemed ruder than Americans. With growing numbers of Chinese now traveling to Europe and the nations’ tourists now among the biggest spenders in the UK, Brits are now rubbing shoulders with more Chinese than ever before.

Brits were voted third rudest nation, taking 10% of the vote. The accolade comes just months after Brits voted themselves the world’s worst tourists.

Yi Bao, Skyscanner Market Manager for China, said: “Whilst China has been voted as the fifth rudest nation in this poll, I think it is more about cultural differences that are being misinterpreted rather than actual rude behaviour.

“For instance Brits are stalwarts for queuing but this is not a common behavior for Chinese people so could be interpreted as being rude if they do not adhere to this custom when holidaying in the UK. With so many Chinese tourists now coming to the UK, there is more chance of Brits seeing this behavior and interpreting it as rude.”

At the other end of the scale, Brazilians, those from the Caribbean islands and Filipinos were voted least rude.

World’s Rudest Nationalities:

1. French 19.2%

2. Russian 16.6%

3. British 10.4%

4. German 9.9%

5. Chinese 4.3%

6. American 3.3%

7. Spanish 3.1%

8. Italian 2.3%

9. Polish 2.2%

10. Turkish 2.1%

BEIJING/TAIPEI — Residents of ten additional Chinese mainland cities will be allowed to travel to Taiwan as independent tourists, according to a deal reached between organizations from both sides of the Strait on Sunday.

Residents of Tianjin, Chongqing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Chengdu will be allowed to visit Taiwan individually starting from April 28, according to a deal reached by the Chinese mainland’s Association for Tourism Exchanges Across the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan’s Taiwan Strait Tourism Association.

The agreement also states that residents of Jinan, Xi’an, Fuzhou and Shenzhen will be permitted to visit individually before the end of the year. Previously, only residents from Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen were allowed to make individual trips.

Under the new agreement, the quota for mainland individual tourists to Taiwan will be increased to 1,000 per day from the current 500.

The new move was welcomed by individual businesses as a potential stimulus for the island’ s service and tourism sectors.

Pai Chung-Ren, president of the Taiwan-based Certified Travel Councillor Association, predicted that more young people will travel to the island because of their preference for traveling alone.

“They have strong purchasing power and are generally well-educated. I believe they will have a greater understanding of Taiwan after traveling individually,” Pai said.

Mainland tourism companies have predicted a sharp increase for cross-Straits tourism. In Fujian, Taiwan’s nearest mainland province, tourism companies have signed agreements with their Taiwanese counterparts to deepen industry exchanges and cooperation.

In a bid to meet increasing demand, the Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou will open a regular flight to Hualien in east Taiwan, making for a total of four regular flights between the two cities.

Xu Peng, deputy director of the Tourism Bureau of East China’s Zhejiang province, said the local tourism industry is ready for a travel boom, with many agencies launching a variety of services targeted at individual travelers.

Wu Chin-feng, deputy director of the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association (TSTA)’s Beijing office, said the association will visit the newly approved cities soon to organize promotional activities.

He said individual tourists are expected to benefit Taiwan’s small- and medium-sized enterprises, adding that the island’s ability to accommodate and transport increased numbers of tourists has been improved.

Lu Wan-ciuan, a jewelry dealer, said the impact of strengthened tourism will not be limited to financial gain, stating that mainland tourists will have an opportunity to cement people-to-people ties and promote mutual understanding.

Taiwan first opened its doors to independent tourists from three mainland cities on June 28 last year. Since then, over 57,000 residents have traveled there. An overall ban on traveling to the island was lifted by Taiwanese authorities in July 2008. Before June 2011, mainlanders could only travel to the island as part of tightly-run tour groups, business trips, academic visits and trips related to family affairs.

The mainland is currently the biggest source of tourists to the island.In 2011, more than 1.78 million mainland residents visited Taiwan, a year-on-year increase of 9.4 percent. Mainlanders accounted for nearly one-third of the 6.08 million visitors the island received last year, according to Taiwanese tourism authorities.

Accommodation demand in China grew “impressively” in 2011, according to Horwarth HTL, with regions across the country experiencing capacity growths of up to 30 percent compared to the prior year.

Presenting at the annual China Hotel Development and Financing Conference, the company revealed Tianjin was the region’s top performing market in overnight room demand with the 30 percent jump followed closely by Suzhou and Chengdu with 25 percent increases.

Guangzhou, Sanja and Xiamen all welcomed a 20 percent growth while Qingdao and Chongqing exceeding 15 percent more visitors.

The Group’s director Julie Dai described 2011 as a “very strong year” for the destination, particularly in regards to room night demand.

“Even Shanghai, with its post Expo rooms hangover managed to scrape into positive territory and to have 11 markets in excess of 10% growth is impressive,” Ms Dai said.

The country’s fourth lowest performing destinations were Dalian, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai with growth between six and seven percent.

Contributing to demand into Shanghai, Air New Zealand announced earlier this week that it would suspend flights into Beijing, opting to increase its service into Shanghai to daily.