Visitors flocking this autumn to the Beichen district of Tianjin –the port city an hour’s train ride from Beijing – are raving about a brand of seafood that’s been launched just for them. The Kao Hong Zun smoked rainbow trout is produced by a local cooperative of aquaculture farms who saw the potential of a wave of visitors coming to check out local rural trails and get away from the city swell. Also drawn by the scenery featured in a popular Chinese TV series shot here, tourists are able to visit aquaculture sheds to see the trout being grown, before eating a lunch of barbequed fish.
“We set up a nice meadow barbeque scene and visitors can also buy fish to take home,” explained Song Shao Kui, general manager of the cooperative behind the Kao Hong Zun brand. Word of mouth from visitors is prompting queries from wholesalers and retailers in Beijing and Tianjin, he adds. Now he’s planning a series of autumn workshops on aquaculture for visitors.
The success of the Beichen enterprise – and the numbers of tourists onsite during Seafoodsource’s visit, suggest it is a success. The idea has been seized on by Chinese fisheries officials who want to move the nation’s aquaculture output away from an obsession with quantity rather than quality. Village cadres and fishing officials from across the region have been taken here on study visits.
Mr. Song is on to something. Every official document on fisheries over the past year has mentioned the term “leisure fisheries.” Local and national officials want to increase the scale of China’s hobby and tourism-related fishing sector, and in doing so, to soak up some of the labor force from the fishing trawlers plying the nation’s badly overfished waters.
It’s noticeable that every regional and municipal batch of fisheries statistics now includes data on leisure fisheries. Leading fisheries firm Zoneco Group has a division focused entirely on organizing fishing getaways for tourists and stressed white-collar types.
Wealth and rising incomes over the past decade made China the world’s top source of foreign tourists and China is set to keep that distinction for some time to come. Hong Kong investment bank CLSA forecasts 200 million Chinese outbound tourists per year by 2020, a projection that has profound implications for a series of beneficiaries– among them hotel chains, airlines and retailers. The U.S.A., Australia and Japan draw in large numbers of tourists from China, who are keen to spend on luxuries that are more affordable than at home.
Healthy, safe food is a special enticement for Chinese tourists, and that’s spawned a demand that’s being satisfied by Western seafood exporters and restaurateurs. But smart operators at home in China are also cashing in on the rise of the Chinese tourists with money to spend.
By serving Chinese tourists a product they can buy on-site and by making the highly localized, traceable process a visitor attraction in itself, the Kao Hong Zun project is tapping into the demands of a growing Chinese consumer class seeking leisure outlets and quality, safe food. Rather than competing on price for export markets, more Chinese aquaculture producers may find that there are better opportunities to be found domestically, raising seafood focusing on quality, rather than quantity of output. The scale of China’s aquaculture facilities needing an upgrade – and a multiplicity of domestic species of seafood - create obvious opportunities. Anyone for trout in the meadows?
