Recently, a topic has sparked heated discussions on Weibo and other major platforms, and the origin is an article published by Bloomberg in the United States. According to the Global Network, the core point of the article is that "China's flight disruption has caused a loss of $130 billion in global tourism." ”
The article said that Chinese tourists, who were once "the largest consumer group of overseas travelers", have now "disappeared", a situation that has caused global tourism to suffer. He also referred to the flow and consumption of Chinese tourists since China's "reopening of borders" in early 2023, claiming that Chinese still prefer to travel to destinations closer to home.
Are Chinese tourists really "disappearing"? Judging from the recovery of China's outbound travel market, it is indeed in line with this trend. As early as the end of 2022, when the news of the reopening of outbound travel appeared, one of the consensus in the industry was that the outbound travel business would not return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, and there was great uncertainty about whether it would return to pre-pandemic levels.
One of the reasons is that the impact of the three-year epidemic on the market is unpredictable, and it will take a certain amount of time to rebuild confidence and dredge recovery, whether it is as a consumer of tourists or an industry serving tourists.
In terms of actual market performance, since China announced the list of the first batch of outbound destinations for group tours in early 2023, the speed of Chinese tourists going abroad has exceeded the expectations of the industry. During the Spring Festival last year, many tourists with passports and visas still valid were the first to go abroad, or to visa-free destinations that have allowed Chinese tourists to enter the country.
According to the 2023 Annual Tourism Consumption Report released by Tuniu, popular destinations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, France, Italy and Sweden took the lead in recovering after the Spring Festival, with group tours and "flight + wine" businesses both experiencing significant growth.
Later, as more and more countries in China have opened up outbound group tours, the third batch of lists has been opened to 138 destinations, and most of the countries that Chinese tourists are keen on outbound travel are basically included, and China's outbound travel business has officially entered the stage of full recovery. According to data released by Ctrip, as of December 26, the number of outbound travel orders in 2023 increased by 5 times year-on-year. Thailand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom are popular countries for outbound travel.
In addition, the "2024 Outbound Travel Demand Trend Outlook of Chinese Residents" from Tongcheng Travel believes that outbound travel will accelerate its recovery in 2024 with the improvement of the supply side and the enhancement of consumer confidence. Traditional group tours, high-end customized tours, and emerging outbound shopping tours, sojourn and other market segments will further consolidate their respective target markets. With the integration of outbound sightseeing, tourism and vacation, concerts, sports events, medical and health care, more new ways to play outbound travel will become popular in 2024.
From the perspective of the domestic market, we are full of confidence in the recovery of the outbound travel market. However, it should not be overlooked, and there are bound to be many difficult problems in this process. For example, there are security concerns in short-distance countries such as Southeast Asia, "fraud" in Myanmar, and rumors of "Ka waist" in Thailand; Another example is the real problems of visa processing difficulties, high thresholds, insufficient flight capacity, insufficient recovery of the ** chain, and soaring costs caused by exchange rates in destination countries such as Europe and the United States, which cannot be solved by China's efforts.
In terms of flight recovery, according to the latest data released by the Civil Aviation Administration, by the end of 2023, China's international passenger scheduled flights will resume to 4,782 flights per week (each round trip is recorded as 1 flight), which is about 62 before the epidemic8%；In terms of specific countries, a total of 67 countries have been served by international scheduled passenger flights, a decrease of 7 countries compared with the number of countries before the epidemic, and the number of flights to 25 countries, including the United Kingdom, has exceeded the pre-epidemic level.
In the relevant article published by Bloomberg, it is also mentioned that compared with New York in the United States, Paris in France and other popular overseas tourist destinations, Chinese tourists are now more inclined to go to the Middle East, or choose some domestic locations, such as Sanya, **, etc. And the reasons for such a phenomenon are attributed to economic factors, political frictions, international geopolitical conflicts, etc.
It is undeniable that the current international situation is unpredictable, and whether the relationship between countries is friendly is indeed a key factor affecting the choice of travel destinations for Chinese tourists. Concerns have made Chinese tourists more cautious about whether or not to leave the country and where to travel.
Judging from the outbound travel trend of Chinese tourists in 2023, the increase in Chinese tourists traveling to the Middle East is very obvious, on the one hand, because the tourist base before the epidemic was not high, and on the other hand, it is also true that Middle Eastern countries attach importance to the development of inbound tourism and increase tourism marketing and promotion efforts in global markets, including China. Tourist growth is not limited to the Chinese market.
According to the latest report released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the number of inbound tourists in the Middle East in 2023 is the only region where international tourism exceeds the epidemic level, with a year-on-year increase of 22% compared to the pre-pandemic level in 2019.
In an exclusive interview with Alhasan Aldabbagh, President of the Asia-Pacific Market of the Saudi Tourism Authority, he also made it clear that in the face of the almost blank Chinese tourism market, Saudi Arabia sees more market opportunities, and hopes to let Chinese tourists re-understand Saudi Arabia in more forms of promotion, and believes that Saudi Arabia will become the next most popular long-distance travel destination for Chinese tourists.
It is understood that at present, the electronic visa for Chinese tourists to travel to Saudi Arabia can be completed in only three minutes, and the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Chinese tourism enterprises is also deepening, not only in the field of tourists, but also in investment cooperation.
China's entry to accelerate the opening up of travel should be "two-way".It is worth noting that China is also further opening up its foreign relations, and the reality is that on December 1, 2023, it announced a trial unilateral visa-free policy for France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia, and then added Switzerland, Ireland and other countries, which means that the policy of foreign tourists visiting China has been further relaxed, and China also welcomes more foreign tourists to visit China.
Under this priority initiative, China has signed "mutual visa exemption" agreements with Singapore and Thailand, which will officially take effect on February 9, 2024 (Chinese New Year's Eve) and March 1, 2024 respectively.
At a regular press conference hosted by spokesman Wang Wenbin on January 29, he also responded to the recently released series of unilateral visa waiver news, saying that countries independently formulate their own visa policies and welcome other countries and China to work together to promote the facilitation of bilateral personnel exchanges.
In response to a reporter's suggestion that many Japanese companies hope to resume visa-free travel at an early date, Wang Wenbin also responded, saying that China has always attached great importance to the facilitation of foreign personnel, including Japanese citizens, to China, and will carefully study the demands of all sectors in Japan for the resumption of the visa-free policy.
It can be seen that China is constantly accelerating the opening up of its exit policy and the convenience of its entry policy, and how foreign countries respond to China's opening up is what should be paid more attention to in 2024. It is said that tourism is a two-way street, and tourists will also vote with their feet, highly open, convenient destinations, and experience plus points, I believe that more Chinese tourists will return.
As for the much-concerned issue of Chinese tourists' spending power, a "China Luxury Report" released by the VIP Research Institute, a professional research and consulting institution for high-end brands, shows that in 2023, "Chinese luxury consumption" will come out of the pressure of 2022 and begin to resume growth, eventually recording a growth rate of 9% to achieve 1.042 trillion yuan, reaching the level of 2019 and returning to the market size of one trillion yuan.
The report also mentioned that Chinese luxury consumption accounts for about 38% of global luxury consumption, and there is no major change, Chinese consumers are still the most important force in global luxury consumption, and the growth rate of China's luxury market is expected to be about 12% in 2024. However, the report also mentioned that in 2023, the proportion of Chinese's domestic luxury consumption will increase by 1% to 58% year-on-year, and there is no more consumption outflow due to Chinese tourists going abroad, which shows that China's various policies to promote consumption have achieved excellent results.
Some tourists also admit that the current demand for outbound tourism will be greater than shopping, especially to European and American destinations, exchange rate problems make many big-name luxury goods lose their best advantages, only in the case of "no goods" in China, they will choose to buy when traveling abroad. Therefore, it can be seen that the speed of Chinese tourists going abroad is faster than expected, but the consumption performance is not synchronized, and it is not only due to the small number of people leaving the country, but the reasons are also complex and difficult to identify.