Chinese tourists are returning, but at a slower pace than expected

When the first Chinese tourists landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport this month, they were greeted like celebrities, with welcome banners, flowers, gifts and a throng of reporters and photographers.

It was a moment that hotels, airlines, tour operators and Thai government officials had been waiting for for a long time – the reopening of China’s borders after nearly three years of restrictions imposed due to the pandemic, which for all practical purposes cut off access for Chinese travellers, in the past the biggest source of revenue for world tourism, to the rest of the planet.

“It’s very exciting to visit warm and beautiful places again,” said Hua Liu, 34, a Shanghai-based graphic designer who was among the first visitors to arrive in Thailand, where she took a two-week beach vacation later this month, as part of a Chinese New Year trip.

“I’m going to make up for lost time,” she said in a telephone interview. Her plan: “Stay in nice hotels, book spa treatments, eat in nice restaurants, and buy nice gifts for me and my family.”

Before the coronavirus pandemic brought international travel to a standstill in 2020, China sent more travelers abroad than any other market; in 2018, there were more than 150 million Chinese tourists, who spent US$ 277 billion abroad, according to a study by the United Nations World Tourism Organization and the China Tourism Academy.

This flow was suspended in 2020 and last year, because even after countries around the world relaxed their travel restrictions, China decided to maintain the ban on international travel for its citizens, as part of the official “Covid zero” policy. .

But on January 8, the Chinese government opened its borders, allowing foreign travelers to enter the country and Chinese residents to leave abroad. Some in the travel industry predicted a veritable exodus of Chinese people traveling internationally, after ticket interest on flights out of the country surged by 83% between Dec. international flights in the same period, according to Ctrip, an online travel agency in China.

But while tourism to nearby destinations such as Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore has grown, more distant destinations are still waiting.

In addition to the high level of Covid cases in China, Chinese travelers are also experiencing long delays in obtaining passports and visas, high prices and a lack of capacity on international flights, as many airlines have reduced their number of flights to and from the country, during the long lockdown in China.

Last Friday’s figures showed that the number of seats available on direct flights from China to Britain in January was just 8% of the number of seats available in 2019, according to VisitBritain, Britain’s official tourism board. . The first scheduled direct flight between China and Switzerland on January 26 was canceled due to a lack of passengers.

Before the pandemic, busloads of Chinese tourists, numbering up to 700 a day, arrived at Maetaeng Elephant Park in the low hills of northern Thailand, about an hour north of the city of Chiang Mai.

Borprit Chailert, the park manager, is eagerly awaiting the return of tourists, but so far only 40 Chinese holiday travelers have turned up, he said.

When they arrive, it won’t be difficult to rent elephants from nearby villagers to strengthen the park’s herd of 76 animals, Chailert said. But it’s hard to know when to hire additional workers and where to find them, as many of them left the tourist region and changed jobs when tourism stopped, he said.

“If we want to hire 100 people today, that’s not something we can do, because we’re not sure,” he said. “I don’t know, maybe in the next couple of months the Chinese government will decide that they are going to close the border again.”

With its economy heavily dependent on tourism, Thailand has lost tens of billions of dollars in Chinese tourist spending over the past three years. The Thai Tourism Authority office in Chiang Mai estimates that the city, known for its stunning Buddhist temples and heavy reliance on tourism, will welcome around 600,000 Chinese visitors this year, who will spend around US$230 million – roughly half of your spending in 2019.

A higher volume of visitors will only start to emerge in the second quarter, say people in the Thai travel industry. Many Chinese tourists traditionally come to Thailand on group tours (they make up about half of Chinese visitors to Chiang Mai), and the Chinese government will not allow tour operators to restart their business until Feb. it will only authorize a pilot program that includes about two dozen countries, including Thailand. For now, only independent Chinese tourists able to afford full-price airline tickets are traveling.

In London, another popular destination for Chinese travelers, more than 300,000 people flocked to Chinatown last week for the first Chinese New Year stop to take place since the outbreak of the coronavirus, but few Chinese tourists were in attendance.

Feng Yang, manager of Shanghai Family, a Chinese restaurant in central London, said he did not anticipate having any travelers from China over the Chinese New Year period, but expected them to return within a few months.

“They are still under the influence of the coronavirus,” Yang said, adding that his business was unlikely to suffer because about 85% of his customers are Chinese students from neighboring universities who have not returned to China for the holidays.

The slow growth in visitor numbers can be attributed to a combination of factors. “The number of flights is not large, tickets will tend to be more expensive and people will need a visa to come,” said Patricia Yates, president of VisitBritain, adding that the return of Chinese travelers to the UK “would grow slowly ” this year, with higher expectations in 2024.

Round-trip flights from China to London cost about $1,300, and Yates anticipates that the number of seats available on flights from China to the UK will amount to just 30% of 2019 capacity, as of June. “That [aumentar a capacidade] it’s really necessary to get people on planes,” she said.

Before the pandemic, China was Australia’s biggest market in terms of tourist spending. The country received 1.4 million Chinese visitors in 2019, and their spending reached US$ 12.4 billion.

Chinese travelers have begun to return to visit friends and relatives, but tour operators don’t expect an influx of leisure travelers for several months to come because flights are expensive and Australia is not on China’s approved list of group sightseeing tours. .

Australia also requires Chinese travelers to be tested for the coronavirus. In January, round-trip ticket prices between China and Australia ranged from US$1,800 to US$3,000. Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists were known for their willingness to spend money, said James Shen, owner of Odyssey Travel in Melbourne.

“Chinese tourists are the ones who say they don’t want to go by boat, they want to go by helicopter,” he said. “It can be a 10-minute journey, at an A$400 price point – too expensive – but Chinese tourists say they prefer to go by helicopter rather than boat because they might get seasick.”

The New York Times, translated by Paulo Migliacci