Today,
Chinese tourists are becoming the focus but the tourist bus connection has
become a little more complicated. Just like their Japanese predecessors,
Chinese tourists don't always have good English language skills and they rely
on pre-organised tours and activities to determine what and where they visit in
Melbourne.
When
it comes to tours, a few people need to make money out of the process. There is
the tour wholesaler who promotes the tour in China, the tour operator in
Melbourne and probably a few others in between. You need to have a tour that
can support commissions and obviously tour operators will go where the money
is. Anyway, without getting too involved in the complexities of modern tours it
is quite possible that a large number of Chinese tourists will leave Melbourne
without ever hearing about the Queen Victoria Market and that is a real
problem.
What
is the solution? One of our traders is a regular traveller to China, has an
understanding of Chinese culture and has some advice (thanks Simon). If we
can't make an effective entry into the commissionable tour market we need to
make sure that QVM is featured on in-flight videos. That way, tourists will be
informed about the QVM and more likely to put us on their visit list.