Post by zeesun on Mar 9, 2024 8:48:10 GMT
Exactly one year has passed since the reopening of the Chinese borders after a long lockdown due to Covid-19. What is the tourism situation in the Dragon Country? Let's see it together starting from an analysis of Skift. . It was January 8, 2023 when China opened its doors to international tourism again after three years of closure due to the pandemic. There were many expectations and many recovery forecasts: many operators in the sector believed that in a short time the Dragon Country would return to the great numbers of 2019, once again configuring itself as the leading Asian market. However, China opted for a more gradual recovery, easing restrictions little by little throughout the year. What is the current situation? Let's make a point together starting from the interview with Gary Bowerman recently published on Skift.
China expert, director of Oman Telegram Number Data Check-in Asia and founder of Asia Travel Re:Set, Bowerman makes an interesting analysis of the evolution of travel in China in the last year and what are the new trends to keep an eye on in the it was post-Covid. Cautious recovery and optimism for the new year At this moment, in the first two weeks of 2024, there is a widespread sense of optimism in the sector, with the expectation of a year full of successes. A year ago, when the borders reopened, there were numerous factors that could limit the recovery of Chinese tourism . Foreseeing very low demand, China had decided to limit the flow of departing travelers to a minimum, also because neither OTAs nor airlines were remotely ready to suddenly return to 2019 numbers after three years of semi-lockdown. The approach was therefore more gradual: between February and August, Chinese travelers gradually resumed traveling to the rest of the world, while in the autumn the government concentrated on more bureaucratic aspects such as visa management.
New attention to incoming tourism China's inbound tourism market, previously primarily linked to business travel and bleisure, has received little attention from the Chinese government due to the high costs and complexity of the visa process. However, there has been a recent change in perspective and China has set itself the goal of increasing inbound tourism over the next five years. In particular, it wants to focus on the three pillars of the sector: inbound tourism, the domestic market - which is currently growing strongly - and outbound tourism. This change is due to the fact that China wants to present itself with a new face in the West: it wants to show itself as a leisure tourist destination, but also as an example of lifestyle and technological progress. The frictions regarding the visa Over the past year, one of the critical issues that has prevented Chinese from moving freely in Europe has been the delay in obtaining Schengen visas and the time it takes the country to obtain them. This situation has created friction, because if on the one hand many Chinese travelers have not been able to spend their holidays in Europe as they would have liked, on the other hand China has allowed international travelers to cross the borders without the need for a visa. “A unilateral policy”, is how the Chinese media expressed themselves about this imbalance.
China expert, director of Oman Telegram Number Data Check-in Asia and founder of Asia Travel Re:Set, Bowerman makes an interesting analysis of the evolution of travel in China in the last year and what are the new trends to keep an eye on in the it was post-Covid. Cautious recovery and optimism for the new year At this moment, in the first two weeks of 2024, there is a widespread sense of optimism in the sector, with the expectation of a year full of successes. A year ago, when the borders reopened, there were numerous factors that could limit the recovery of Chinese tourism . Foreseeing very low demand, China had decided to limit the flow of departing travelers to a minimum, also because neither OTAs nor airlines were remotely ready to suddenly return to 2019 numbers after three years of semi-lockdown. The approach was therefore more gradual: between February and August, Chinese travelers gradually resumed traveling to the rest of the world, while in the autumn the government concentrated on more bureaucratic aspects such as visa management.
New attention to incoming tourism China's inbound tourism market, previously primarily linked to business travel and bleisure, has received little attention from the Chinese government due to the high costs and complexity of the visa process. However, there has been a recent change in perspective and China has set itself the goal of increasing inbound tourism over the next five years. In particular, it wants to focus on the three pillars of the sector: inbound tourism, the domestic market - which is currently growing strongly - and outbound tourism. This change is due to the fact that China wants to present itself with a new face in the West: it wants to show itself as a leisure tourist destination, but also as an example of lifestyle and technological progress. The frictions regarding the visa Over the past year, one of the critical issues that has prevented Chinese from moving freely in Europe has been the delay in obtaining Schengen visas and the time it takes the country to obtain them. This situation has created friction, because if on the one hand many Chinese travelers have not been able to spend their holidays in Europe as they would have liked, on the other hand China has allowed international travelers to cross the borders without the need for a visa. “A unilateral policy”, is how the Chinese media expressed themselves about this imbalance.