Travel agents tell tourists to insure themselves
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E-mail China Daily, May 11, 2013
Leading travel agencies say they are urging everyone planning to travel abroad this summer to insure themselves fully, after a string of recent accidents involving holidaymakers.
Industry leaders said they want to raise the current 90 percent of people who buy travel policies in China, to 100 percent, as they gear up for what many expect to be the fourth straight year of record-breaking outbound travel.
"Our sales teams work hard to convince customers of the need to buy insurance as part of their travel packages, and always notify them of the best kinds of cover," said Zhu Haining, deputy general manager of Shanghai Airlines Tours Outbound Travel Co Ltd.
There have been several high-profile incidents involving tourists in recent months, the most dramatic being an attack on one by a hippopotamus in Africa.
Others included a diving death in Thailand, and a balloon crash in Egypt, which killed nine travelers from Hong Kong.
Zhu added that insurance ideally covers not only medical expenses, but also any other form of financial loss incurred during a trip.
To those who plan to travel abroad for the first time, he suggested that they consider travel insurance as a "buffer zone", both physically and mentally.
But this "leveraging of risk" is not yet embedded in Chinese culture, Zhu noted.
"One of our key roles is to educate the market about the importance of insurance. I would like to see the rate of people taking out travel insurance rise to 100 percent within two years."
That expectation is shared by Lu Jianming, outbound travel center assistant general manager at Shanghai Jinjiang Tours Co Ltd.
As many as 95 percent of Jinjiang's group travelers opt for an insurance package, but Lu said there is still room to grow that.
"Especially on the trips that include higher risk activities such as winter sports or diving, we always urge customers to buy it. But any tourist should consider insurance as a necessity, rather than an option," said Lu.
The general belief held by tourists is that insurance only allows you extra cover in the event of illness or accident, Lu said.
"But even if you encounter something as common as delays, it's better to have travel cover."
Luo An'dan, assistant to the general manager of liability insurance department at People's Insurance Company (Group) of China Ltd, Shanghai branch, added that there is great flexibility in the types of policy available.
Temporary travel insurance can usually be arranged at the time of the booking of a trip to cover exactly the duration of that trip, and a "multi-trip" policy can cover an unlimited number of trips within a set time frame.
Many global insurance companies now provide local services.
For instance, US giant AIG Insurance Co China Ltd can create customized travel solutions.
"More expensive plans do not necessarily provide better cover. The key is to choose the right product and identify the disclaimers of liability," said Daniel Cheung, AIG's vice-president for travel insurance of China.
The number of Chinese outbound tourists rose for the third year in a row in 2012, hitting 83.2 million, up 18.41 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by organizers of the World Travel Fair in Shanghai, which opened on Thursday.
The percentage of business trips declined to 7.37 percent of all outbound travelers.
About 28 percent of travelers went abroad on organized trips last year, indicating the pursuit of more diversified and personalized travel experiences, said Xu Fan, a member of the panel of tourism experts at the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Ninety percent of outbound travelers were heading for destinations in Asia, which remains the most attractive continent for Chinese travelers.
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