What you need to know
Total self-drive travellers amounted to 2.5 billion in 2020, down by 34.1% compared with 2019. The impact of COVID-19 on self-drive tours is less severe than on the overall market which has seen travellers decline by 43.6% in 2020.
The associations with protecting personal health and benefiting emotional wellbeing supported self-drive tours and led the domestic travel’s recovery. Long-haul self-drive tours to neighbouring provinces will be the next catalyst to fuel further recovery and traveller volume growth.
The COVID-19 outbreak has driven outbound self-drive travellers back down to the level during 2013-14. It is not likely to recover even when outbound travel reopens, as willingness to participate in outbound self-driving is lower than before the outbreak.
The most enthusiastic self-drive travellers demonstrate sophisticated expectations for self-drive tours. They are most driven by managing emotional wellbeing, which is more important than other benefits of self-drive tours such as being able to explore new places and flexibility of route design.
People tend to look for stay-alone moments when they travel for managing emotional issues. This is an opportunity to target solo travellers with self-drive tour services featuring improving mental wellbeing. This is an emerging yet underserved consumer group.
Covered in this report
Consumer segmentation for self-drive travellers
Motivations to participate in self-drive tours
Car hire usage, accommodation choices and travel companions for self-drive tours
Volume growth opportunities for self-drive tours in China
Business opportunities in the self-drive tour market
