Rising Chinese outbound trips fuel global tourism revival in 2024

Staff members welcome Chinese tourists at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok, Thailand, September 25, 2023. Thailand extended a warm welcome to the first batch of visa-exempt flights from China on Monday, marking the launch of the nation's fresh initiative to reinvigorate its Chinese tourist market. Photo: Xinhua

While the travel craze during the Spring Festival holidays has only just ended, Chinese tourists are eagerly planning their upcoming trips for the May Day holidays, summer vacation and even National Day holidays in October, with bookings for outbound trips already picking up steam, according to online travel agencies.

Experts on Tuesday noted that as China continues to ease conditions for entry and exit, coupled with the increasingly robust economic recovery, Chinese outbound tourism will further rebound in 2024, significantly contributing to the global tourism market's recovery.

The number of users who have shown an early interest in travel for the upcoming May Day holidays is up more than 50 percent compared with 2023, according to data sent to the Global Times by Tongcheng Travel on Tuesday.

For outbound flight bookings, the week after the Spring Festival holidays saw a nearly twofold increase in reservations for the May Day holidays, compared with the period before the holidays. Tickets for flights to tourism destinations like Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia are the most popular, Tongcheng said.

With international flights resuming, this summer is set to see a boom in outbound travel, with smart travelers already making visa applications and booking flights, travel platform Qunar said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

On Qunar's platform, flights from Shanghai to Manila in the Philippines, Seoul in South Korea, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Bangkok in Thailand in early July are now all priced at under 1,000 yuan ($139).

The impressive recovery of the tourism market during the just concluded Spring Festival holidays has boosted confidence in the industry and spurred growth in related consumption sectors, setting a continued positive tone for the tourism industry in the first half of 2024, experts said.

China's outbound tourism has been on a steady path to recovery since last year. While it has not yet fully rebounded to pre-pandemic levels due to factors such as limited flight capacity, it is showing an accelerating trend toward recovery, Jiang Yiyi, a deputy head of the School of Leisure Sports and Tourism at Beijing Sport University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing on Monday that China has rolled out six new measures to facilitate cross-border travels.

The new policies include shortening visa application forms, lowering visa fees for the entire year, streamlining approval procedures for foreign students, exempting certain applicants from fingerprinting, providing walk-in visa application services and extending the unilateral visa-free policy to France, Germany and some other countries on a trial basis, Mao said.

These efforts have not only promoted a more open approach to inbound tourism, but also contributed to the recovery of outbound tourism, Jiang said.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, about 6.83 million cross-border trips were made during the Spring Festival holidays. Outbound travel accounted for about 3.6 million trips, close to the levels seen during the same period in 2019.

Qunar data indicated that during the Spring Festival holidays, Chinese tourists visited 125 countries and regions around the world. There was a notable increase in bookings for the three latest countries to reciprocally waive visas with China: Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Since 2013, Chinese tourists have become the primary source of visitor arrivals for many popular overseas destinations. This is attributed to their substantial numbers and robust spending power, Jiang said.

"As China continues to facilitate travel and with its economy steadily recovering, the number of outbound tourists is expected to further increase this year, providing additional momentum for the global tourism market's recovery," Jiang noted.