As more countries open their borders to international tourism, the absence of Chinese visitors is causing more than a little economic pain. From Phuket to Paris, major tourist destinations have relied on an average of 150 million Chinese travelers spending up to US$255 billion yearly on sightseeing. Now three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these destinations are starting to realize that it will be a while till the Chinese tourists return. Some analysts believe that this could impose serious economic consequences on affected countries.
Despite the rest of the world moving toward an endemic approach to the virus, China continues to implement a zero-Covid policy. As of August 2022, China has a quarantine system in place for inbound travelers as well as rigorous measures that get promptly activated in case of outbreaks. Yet, it is precisely such measures that allow Chinese tourists to feel safer when traveling across provinces and have fueled the growth of the country’s domestic tourism industry.
Nevertheless, tourism market data from China in the first quarter of 2022 showed a significant dip when compared to the same period in the previous year. Data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, for example, revealed that, during the New Year’s Day and Spring Festival, 52 million and 251 million people traveled across the country between the two holidays, showing a year-on-year decrease of 5.3 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively. This of course can be put down to the resurgence of Covid-19 with multiple regional and global outbreaks due to more infectious variants. However, with the beginning of the summer holiday season, the slowdown appears to have once again reversed as ticket sales are noticeably on the rise. This presents us with a unique opportunity to zoom in on China’s tourism market and explore how it has transformed since the pandemic. We discuss who is the new Chinese traveler, look at destination trends, as well as the types of services required by the tourism market.
The Chinese tourist profile at a glance
Family traveling at its peak
The pandemic has caused the decline in popularity of destinations previously famous for group travel, a revenue mainstay for the tourism industry. Chinese travelers are instead opting for different plans based on needs and preferences, giving rise to more family vacations, healthcare tours, and research trips. In particular, “parent-child tourism” has gained momentum throughout 2021 and 2022, along with the steady revival of the national tourism industry.
The 2022 Summer Travel Market Trend Report released by Ctrip (one of China’s leading travel companies) showed that family travel packages have reached a peak in the 2022 summer booking spree. In July 2022, the number of family air tickets sold increased by 804 percent, compared to the previous month. Similarly, bookings of family-friendly hotels grew 80 percent, compared to the same period in 2021, and were up by 20 percent from 2019 – most of these bookings being concentrated in four- and five-star hotels.
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