How Chinese Outbound Travelers Book Flights

In Dragon Trail’s September 2025 sentiment survey, we asked more than 500 Chinese consumers with outbound travel experience about their previous decision-making process for selecting and booking outbound flights. Their responses reveal first-hand insights on Chinese travelers’ airline choices, seat preferences, booking habits, and the key factors influencing their flight-booking decisions for outbound travel.

Airlines

The strength of Chinese carriers for international routes has been a major feature of the post-pandemic outbound travel market, particularly for long-haul destinations – for example, by the end of 2024, Chinese carriers operated 82% of the flights between China and Europe, up from 56% pre-pandemic. Information shared by survey respondents about the airline they flew for their last outbound trip also reflects this trend. China Southern Airlines was the most popular domestic airline among surveyed outbound travelers, followed by Air China and China Eastern Airlines.

Southeast Asian low-cost carrier AirAsia was the most frequently mentioned foreign airline, with All Nippon Airways, Emirates Airline, Qatar Airways, and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific also standing out. These are the foreign airlines that typically perform best on Chinese social media too. Examples of highly successful marketing outreach by airlines in the past year include AirAsia’s collaborations with Chinese musicians and campus concert series, and Cathay Pacific’s high-quality short videos.

How Chinese Travelers Choose Their Outbound Flights

What are the important considerations for Chinese outbound travelers when booking outbound flights? 51% of outbound travelers consider a convenient flight time to be the most important factor. Next on the list is price, with 44% prioritizing outbound flights with competitive prices, and 40% seeking promotions or discounts during booking. Other key considerations include direct-flight availability (33%), seat comfort (31%), and previous positive experiences with the airline (30%).

Cabin Choice

77% of surveyed outbound travelers booked economy class for their most recent international trip, and 11% bought premium economy flight tickets, with another 9% in business class.

ForwardKeys’ flight booking data has shown stronger-than-average growth in Chinese flight bookings for premium seats in the past several years. For example, ahead of 2025’s Golden Week holiday, economy bookings rose by +23%, while “demand for premium cabins … surged by +74% – spanning premium economy, business, and first class.”

Flight Booking

As for booking channels of last international flight, 53% of surveyed outbound travelers chose OTAs, while 30% booked directly through airline websites. Offline travel agencies were selected by 14% of travelers overall, but this percentage is significantly higher among travelers aged 45-65, with 24% of this age group opting for traditional travel agencies.

According to Ctrip’s 2023-2024 Inbound and Outbound Travel Consumption Trends Report, Chinese travelers tend to book outbound flights an average of just 10-18 days in advance, with long-haul flights booked on the earlier end of the spectrum, and regional flights booked later.

Airline Marketing for China: Our Work

Dragon Trail has many years of experience working with overseas airlines to support their marketing in China, including legacy and low-cost airlines, as well as regional and long-haul carriers. In 2025, our work with overseas airlines includes live streaming and WeChat support for Air Canada, WeChat marketing for United Airlines, and WeChat and WeChat Channels for Royal Brunei Airlines.

While airlines do conduct their own marketing activities, joint campaigns involving both airlines and destinations can perform particularly well, allowing different industry verticals to join forces and increase their reach. From May 2025, we ran a successful RedNote campaign for Tourism Events Queensland (TEQ), with the goal of promoting China Southern Airlines’ increased flights to Brisbane through a combination of original content, KOC collaboration, and UGC boosted through RedNote’s Koubeitong function (learn more here). More recently, we supported the 30 November launch of China Eastern Airlines’ Beijing-Muscat flights with PR and in-person events, including a three-city China roadshow for Oman’s Ministry of Heritage and Tourism during the first week of December 2025.

Dragon Trail provides a full suite of marketing services for airlines, destinations, hotels, retailers, and other travel brands and businesses to help them reach Chinese consumers and the Chinese travel trade. Contact us to discuss your needs and how we can help launch or optimize your China marketing for 2026.