Travellers walk with their luggage at Beijing Capital International Airport, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Beijing, China December 27, 2022. REUTERSPIX: China's relaxation of Covid-19 rules for international arrivals has raised hopes that its multi-billion dollar travel business will soon flourish again but countries longing for the return of Chinese tourists will likely face more of a wait.
Airlines are drawing up plans to expand their services but ordinary Chinese and travel agencies suggest that a return to anything like normal will take some time.But he said would likely wait until the late spring or even the summer before venturing abroad again, most likely to the United States to visit a sister.
Data from travel platform Ctrip showed that within half an hour of the announcement, searches for popular cross-border destinations had increased 10-fold. The Qunar platform said it saw a seven-fold increase in international flight searches within 15 minutes.But an immediate surge in international travel is not widely expected.
Liu Simin, an official with the tourism arm of the China Society for Futures Studies, a research institute based in Beijing, said international travel won't recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.