Chinese tourists light incense at a temple. China’s travel relaxation may set the stage for acceleration in the global tourism industry’s rebound from Covid.China lifted a ban on group tours to a slew of countries including the US, UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan, in a major test of demand for overseas travel from what was once the world’s biggest source of tourists.
“There will be someone going, you’ll probably still have someone, but the size of overseas travel won’t be as large as you saw before pre-Covid or the pre-economic slowdown,” said Dongshu Liu, an assistant professor specializing in Chinese politics at the City University of Hong Kong. “A lot of Chinese people will be hesitant to go to Western countries, worried that they’ll face discrimination. They may also simply not have the funds.
In 2019, Chinese tourists accounted for about one third of Japan’s international visitors, spending more than $12 billion in the country—the highest among all overseas markets, according to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization. In the first half of this year, the number of Chinese travelers in Japan only returned to 13 percent of the pre-pandemic levels.
Still, it’s unclear how far the easing on group tours goes in thawing those relations. In addition to sluggish demand for Chinese to travel abroad, China is seeing a dearth of inbound travelers.