China celebrates the Chinese New Year on February 10. Although the economy is sluggish and consumption is slowing, the spending power of Chinese is still very strong.
However, there are many companies that have nine consecutive holidays from the 9th to the 17th for the year-end and New Year holidays, and the "longest Spring Festival vacation" has become a buzzword, and the number of overseas travelers has basically recovered to the level before 2020.
Among the popular overseas travel destinations,Japan, which often competes for the first place, has a weak presence。One of these trends is the reason why Japan's nuclear sewage and treated water problems cannot be resolved.
In recent years, there have been many people who have spent the Spring Festival overseas. In previous years, the Spring Festival holiday was 7 days, but in 2024, the Spring Festival holiday will be from February 10 to 17, a total of 8 days. In addition, since most companies and organizations are closed on the 9th of Chinese New Year's Eve, most citizens can actually take nine days off.
International flights are also gradually resuming. According to a report released by the China Travel Research Institute on the 4th, the number of overseas travelers in 2024 will increase significantly from 8,700 the year before, and it is expected to reach 9% of the 2019 level before the coronary disaster, that is, 1300 million people.
The Authority said on the same day that the average daily number of people entering and leaving the country during the Spring Festival this year will reach 1.8 million. It's 33 times, the same as the level of 2019.
In the Spring Festival outbound tour, China's first domestically produced large-scale cruise ship "Adela Magic City", which was put into commercial operation in January this year.
During the Spring Festival, there are tours from Shanghai to Kagoshima, Nagasaki, and Jeju on the 9th, and Okinawa from Shanghai on the 14th. The 2,125-room ship is selling out early on the 9th of the New Year's departure.
China lifted its ban on group travel to Japan in August 2023, and searches for "Japan" on local travel platforms surged. The Japanese subsidiary of the Chinese e-commerce giant Ariba Group has announced that it will launch a cross-border medical tourism business between China and Japan, and the expectations of the Japanese side have also been greatly raised. (Previous report: Chinese buy "Japanese medical care"?)Background of concern).
The primary purpose of most tourists who apply for Adela Japan cruise tourism is to take a domestic cruise ship that has attracted much attention. Before the National Day and Chinese New Year holidays, there was a lot of information about "popular travel destinations" and travel trends based on search volume, but now there are no obvious mentions of Japan during the Chinese New Year.
The impact of Japan's water treatment problem has not yet been eliminated, and it is one of the reasons why Japan is not active in tourism.
In addition to seafood, a wide range of Japanese products such as cosmetics applied to ** are shunned by Chinese consumers, and they enter the National Day holiday in October.
Abba Group also reduced sales of Japanese brands to Chinese consumers on Singles' Day** last November. (Past reports: China's "Singles' Day Sale" Japanese brands are fighting hard).
The same thing happened with overseas travel. Although it is necessary to sell travel products to people who want to go to Japan, it is difficult to actively promote them.
However, the problem of water treatment is not the biggest reason for the decline in Japan's popularity as an overseas tourist destination during the Spring Festival.
Searching for "Spring Festival" and "overseas travel" on China's Weihe Search**, the top few are Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand's "New Malaysia and Thailand".
In September last year, a female company employee (in her 40s) living in Shanghai said, "I wanted to celebrate my daughter's admission to university and a trip to Japan on National Day, but the plane ticket was too expensive, so I gave up." I went during the Spring Festival", but when the Spring Festival was approaching, "because English and Chinese are spoken, and visas are not required", the travel destination was changed to Singapore.
China *** announced on January 25,China and Singapore implement a mutual visa exemption policy, and the stay in Singapore is not more than 30 days。The visa-free policy is effective from 9 February,** and is called a "New Year's gift."
China and Thailand also reached an agreement on January 28 to waive visas for tourists staying for up to 30 days for tourism purposes.
In order to revive the tourism industry, Thailand's temporary visa-free policy for Chinese will be officially implemented from late September 2023 to the end of February this year. Malaysia has also implemented a visa-free policy for Chinese tourists staying for tourism purposes for up to 30 days since December last year.
With three of Southeast Asia's most popular tourist destinations announcing visa-free visits, searches and bookings for these countries are surging on any travel booking platform.
The trend of this year's Spring Festival is all "warm, low-priced, Chinese-friendly (visa-free)" Southeast Asia. As long as you are not a repeat customer who used to think that "I want to go to Japan as soon as the corona is over", there will be an atmosphere of "it doesn't matter if you don't go to Japan now".