Chinese businesses will be allowed to resume group tours abroad from February 6 to 20 selected countries, the China Daily reported.
According to the list from the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the selected countries include Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Fiji, Cuba and Argentina. Among them, Vietnam or Japan, some countries in the EU (European Union) are not included.
The announcement was made in late January 2023. Since then, searches for group overseas tours in China have surged on many online travel platforms.
Trip.com, China’s largest online travel agency, said searches for group tours to Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Cambodia were highest. However, the most popular overseas destinations for Chinese tourists were Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Manila in the Philippines and Bali in Indonesia.
From February 6, China resumes outbound group tours to 20 selected countries
During the recent Lunar New Year, the number of foreign travel bookings increased by 640% compared to the same period last year on this online platform.
China's outbound tourism market is expected to see a boom during the country's National Day holiday in October, thanks to the gradual increase in international flights and the convenience of travel, said Shen Jiani, a senior researcher at Trip.
In addition, Tongcheng Travel, an online travel agency based in Suzhou, found that during the 2023 Lunar New Year, the most popular outbound flight routes were from Guangzhou (Guangdong Province) to Phnom Penh (Cambodia); Guangzhou to Bangkok (Thailand); Shanghai to Bangkok and Xiamen (Fujian Province) to Bangkok.
While Thailand is gearing up to welcome a boom in Chinese tourists again, in Japan, Yasufumi Yamada, head of the Shanghai Office of the Japan National Tourism Organization, expressed disappointment that the country was not included in the list of overseas destinations for Chinese group tours.
Sharing on Nippon, Mr. Yamada hopes to "welcome tourists from China soon". It is easy to see that the reason why Japan was not chosen is because of the country's strict requirements for testing Chinese visitors, such as having a negative result for Covid-19 within 72 hours; those who test positive in the first 7 days of arriving in Japan must be quarantined...
Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists accounted for 30% of foreign visitors to Japan (31.88 million in 2019). Chinese tourists spent 1,770 billion yen ($13.4 billion), accounting for 36.8% of total spending by all inbound tourists.
In Europe, destinations such as the UK, France, Germany, Spain, etc. were also left out of the list of 20 countries. Meanwhile, on dw.com, experts expressed very high expectations for the Chinese market segment, although the number of bookings is still very low.
Wolfgang Arlt, CEO of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) in Hamburg, Germany, said it was unlikely that there would be a major wave of tourism from China. He predicted that this would not change until Easter this year. The barriers are still too high, and it is not easy for Chinese tourists to get visas.
With the Covid-19 epidemic still at a high infection rate in China, EU member states agreed in early January to apply mandatory testing to all passengers on flights from China.
Moreover, the excitement over the prospect of Chinese tourists returning to Europe is not entirely clear, as, according to the agency’s analysis, only Italy made it into the top 10 most popular destinations for Chinese tourists – with just under 3.2 million arrivals in 2019.
Chinese tourists spend three times more in Europe, but mainly for sightseeing and shopping, with few staying and relaxing. For example, in 2029, Germany will have only 3 million Chinese tourists out of 500 million overnight visitors. The figure is similar in Switzerland, with 1.85 million Chinese overnight visitors out of 40 million. In Spain, there will be only about 700,750 tourists from China out of the country's 83 million visitors.
However, Chinese tourists are still welcomed by countries. In 2019, there were more than 155 million international trips made from China. COTRI forecasts that by 2023, there will be an estimated 110 million trips and by 2030, it will increase to 228 million trips.
