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According to China Daily, Chinese businesses were allowed to resume group tours abroad starting February 6th, to 20 selected countries.
According to the list from China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the selected countries include Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Fiji, Cuba, and Argentina. Vietnam, Japan, and several EU (European Union) countries are not included.
The announcement was made at the end of January 2023. Since then, the number of searches for group overseas trips in China has surged on many online travel platforms.
Trip.com, China's largest online travel company, reported that searches for group tours to Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and Cambodia were the highest. However, the most popular overseas destinations for Chinese tourists included Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Manila in the Philippines, and Bali in Indonesia.
Starting February 6th, China resumed group tours abroad to 20 selected countries.
During the recent Lunar New Year holiday, the number of overseas travel bookings on this online platform increased by 640% compared to the same period last year.
Shen Jiani, a senior researcher at Trip, predicts that the outbound tourism market in China is expected to see a boom during the National Day holiday (October), thanks to the gradual increase in international flights and improved travel convenience.
Additionally, Tongcheng Travel, an online travel company based in Suzhou, found that during the 2023 Lunar New Year holiday, the most popular outbound flights 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 busily preparing to welcome back the surge in Chinese tourists, 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 group tours by Chinese tourists.
Speaking to Nippon, Mr. Yamada expressed his hope "to soon welcome tourists from China." It's clear that Japan wasn't chosen because of its strict testing requirements for Chinese visitors, such as a negative COVID-19 test result within 72 hours; and a 7-day quarantine period if a positive test result is obtained within the first 7 days of arrival in Japan.
Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists accounted for 30% of foreign visitors to Japan (31.88 million in 2019). Chinese tourists spent 1.77 trillion yen (US$13.4 billion), representing 36.8% of the total spending of all domestic tourists.
In Europe, destinations such as the UK, France, Germany, and Spain were also excluded from the list of 20 countries. Meanwhile, on dw.com, experts expressed very high expectations for the Chinese market segment, although the number of bookings remains very low.
Wolfgang Arlt, CEO of the China Overseas Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) in Hamburg, Germany, believes that a major influx of tourists from China is unlikely. He predicts this will not change until Easter this year. The barriers remain too high; it is not easy for Chinese tourists to obtain visas.
The continued high infection rates of Covid-19 in China led EU member states to agree in early January to implement mandatory testing for all passengers on flights from China.
Furthermore, the excitement surrounding the prospect of Chinese tourists returning to Europe is not entirely clear. According to the firm's analysis, only Italy made it into the top 10 most popular destinations for Chinese tourists – with fewer than 3.2 million visitors in 2019.
Chinese tourists spend three times more in Europe, but primarily on sightseeing and shopping, with few staying for extended periods. For example, in 2029, Germany is expected to have only 3 million Chinese tourists out of 500 million overnight visitors. The figures are similar in Switzerland, with 1.85 million overnight Chinese visitors out of 40 million. In Spain, only about 700,750 tourists are from China out of the country's 83 million visitors.
However, Chinese tourists remain a popular choice for many countries. In 2019, over 155 million international trips were made from China. COTRI forecasts that this number will reach approximately 110 million in 2023 and 228 million in 2030.
