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With the reopening of their country’s borders, Chinese tourists can once again travel abroad. The whole world – or almost – awaits the return of this key clientele for the tourism industry.
Chinese tourists are the most numerous to leave their country and they are also the ones who spend the most. In 2019 – the last year before Covid-19 – 155 million Chinese vacationed abroad. They spent $255 billion, or a quarter of tourism revenue. By way of comparison, American tourists, the second contingent abroad, spend almost half as much.
This Chinese tourism has been a growing phenomenon for the past ten years. It concerns the wealthy classes. Only one in ten Chinese hold a passport. Among these privileged people, the desire for elsewhere materialized in the surge in reservations for Lunar New Year, as soon as the restrictions were lifted. For the week of January 20, when the Chinese will celebrate the Year of the Rabbit, the demand for trips abroad is six times greater than last year.
Will the Chinese travel as much as in 2019?
Not immediately. Firstly because these travelers locked up for three years may need to renew their passports, and above all they have to apply for visas, which takes time, at least a few weeks to obtain these two sesames. Except in tourist countries which have provided a simplified online procedure to facilitate the return of Chinese. This is what Thailand does, for example.
In addition to these administrative constraints, Chinese tourists will mainly come up against the lack of transport: many air links between China and the rest of the world have been suspended due to the “zero Covid” policy, and the surprise lifting of restrictions robbed airlines of the preparation time needed to reactivate lines. It will take a few months or more. The reopening of China’s borders is excellent news for air transport, but companies will remain cautious.
The rise in kerosene has pushed up the price of the ticket
And inflation eats away at household purchasing power. Not sure to fill planes under these conditions. The return to 2019 capacity will probably not take place in 2023, when there is a high risk of recession for the global economy. For all these reasons, projections on the return of Chinese tourists are therefore quite cautious. According to a Chinese research institute, it is from the second half that the Chinese will really leave their country, and over the whole of the year, they should be around 50 million to be able to do so.
And which countries will benefit the most?
Southeast Asian countries – those most dependent on Chinese tourists – certainly have the most to gain from their return. Thailand was the first destination for these visitors: it welcomed twelve million Chinese in 2019, ten million for Japan. If we trust to the destinations most in demand by the Chinese since the end of the “zero Covid” policy, we find, among the top ten, countries very impatient to receive them, such as Thailand or Hong Kong, which have suffered for three years from the absence of these customers, that the countries most cautious, such as the United States, South Korea or Japan, three countries that require entry tests. Demand will therefore not necessarily be discouraged by sanitary barriers. France, the European country most visited by the Chinese, is not part of this top ten, but it is actively preparing for their return.
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