Asia’s tourism industry, heavily affected by Covid-19, is still in the recovery phase. However, this industry will not be able to “regain its pre-pandemic form” if tourists from China choose to “stay at home”. China was the world’s largest outbound tourism market before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nearly a year after Beijing lifted strict travel restrictions, many countries in the region have yet to see Chinese visitor numbers return to pre-pandemic levels, as the economic slowdown has forced many to tighten belts and limit travel more.
Statistics from 10 countries, where there is a breakdown of tourists by country of origin, show that in October alone, there were 1.6 million fewer Chinese tourists than in the same period in 2019, decreased by 64%.
Southeast Asia tourism is “thirsty” for Chinese tourists
Chinese tourists are the main source of revenue for many tourism countries around the world. Photo: Unsplash.
And that number doesn’t even include Thailand, one of the favorite destinations for Chinese tourists. Official Thai data shows that about 11 million Chinese tourists visited the country in 2019, but only 2.8 million arrived in the first 10 months of 2023.
As in the case of Thailand, China used to be the leading international tourism market for many Asian countries, so their travel restrictions have affected the post-epidemic recovery process of the country’s tourism industry. . Among them, Vietnam welcomed 1.1 million foreign tourists in October 2023, half a million fewer than the same month in 2019, when the number of Chinese visitors decreased by 410,000. Similarly, South Korea saw the number of international tourists decrease by 390,000 in October 2023 compared to four years ago, of which Chinese visitors decreased by 290,000.
Even some countries where total tourist numbers have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels are making efforts to lure back Chinese tourists. Take Japan, which had 470,000 fewer visitors from China in October 2023 than in the same period in 2019. However, when Chinese people travel abroad, they prefer destinations closer to home. According to a report by the China Tourism Academy, more than 60% of China’s foreign tourists chose to visit the Asia-Pacific region in the first half of 2023, with Thailand, Japan and Singapore ranking first. top their list of favorite countries. affiliated agencies.
Ying Zhang, a research analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), cited “a weak labor market and uncertainty about future earnings” as the top reasons why Chinese tourists The nation is afraid to go abroad. “Strict Covid restrictions and wealth constraints have severely eroded household income and assets,” she said. The Chinese will limit foreign travel and must It will take until early 2025 to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels.”
China is on track to report one of its weakest annual growth rates in decades, with job insecurity growing. The youth unemployment rate hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, before Beijing decided to stop publishing the data altogether.
Nearly a year after Beijing lifted strict travel restrictions, many countries in the region have yet to see Chinese visitor numbers return to pre-pandemic levels, as the economic slowdown has forced many to tighten belts and limit travel more. Photo: CNN.
In November 2023, Jie Sun, CEO of China’s leading travel company Trip.com Group, mentioned the lengthy visa application process and flight capacity “recovering only 50%” as of the third quarter, were two “major hurdles” in recovering external business activity.
According to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium, passenger flight capacity between China and most destinations in Asia remains well below pre-Covid-19 levels. Data shows that fourth-quarter capacity for flights from China to Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam remained less than half the same period in 2019, while carrier capacity to Cambodia was only 22% compared to the previous period.
Chinese residents accounted for 3% of all international tourists in Cambodia in October 2023, down from 22% in the same month in 2019.
EIU researcher Ying Zhang said Chinese households are also choosing to travel domestically for economic reasons. Official statistics show 3.7 billion domestic trips in the first three quarters of this year, down just 20% from the same period in 2019, while total spending reached 3.69 trillion yuan ($520 billion). ), equal to 85% compared to the level 4 years ago.
Ivy Li, 26, who has traveled extensively in Yunnan province, said: “In recent years, I have noticed that for many of the landscapes we see abroad, I can find see something similar or even more beautiful in China”.
“My biggest concern is safety when traveling abroad, especially with a lot of complex social information going on in Southeast Asia,” Li added.
Many Chinese expressed similar concerns on social media and said they would avoid traveling to countries such as Cambodia, which is now known to be a haven for online fraud gangs specializing in human trafficking. forced labor.
To lure Chinese tourists back, Thailand temporarily waived visas for them at the end of September 2023, although the deadly shooting in central Bangkok shortly afterwards may have affected numbers. number of visitors. Malaysia and Singapore also proposed visa exemption for Chinese citizens staying no more than 30 days.
Despite a slow recovery so far, China’s outbound tourism is still picking up during the holiday season. As of the end of last month, Trip.com’s number of foreign travel bookings during Lunar New Year and Lunar New Year had increased 5.74 and 20 times respectively compared to 12 months ago. The company’s data shows locations including Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Osaka and Singapore were among the most popular destinations in both periods.