Booking platform Klook Travel Technology said inbound tourism to China from Southeast Asia in 2024 could surpass pre-pandemic figures, with total tourist numbers fully recovering by 2025. If these predictions come true, it would be a huge boon for China, which saw foreign tourist numbers in 2023 reach just 56% of 2019 levels.
Speaking at the UBS Asia Investment Conference in Hong Kong, Ethan Lin, CEO of Crook Travel Technology, said China’s plans to ease visa requirements have boosted tourism numbers. The loosening of visa restrictions for Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand has made a big difference, Lin said, because “there aren’t that many places you can go to without a visa,” and “China is now one of the main places people actually travel to.”
Another driver is the opening up of China’s cashless payments system, which previously required a Chinese bank account and payment app, and has caused friction for foreigners. Authorities are working to make the system more user-friendly for visitors, going so far as to warn hotels not to turn away guests from overseas.
Domestic tourism in China has also soared in popularity. A survey of high-income households by consultancy Oliver Wyman in May found that only 14% plan to travel abroad this year, citing the abundance of options to travel to China and the cost of overseas travel as the main reasons. This data seems to be supported by figures from Trip.com, which show that bookings to rural destinations in China have increased nearly threefold since the pandemic, and domestic flight bookings for the first quarter of 2024 are up 30% year-on-year. Furthermore, a CNBC analysis of Chinese New Year in early May this year revealed that domestic tourism trips and revenues have increased 28.2% and 13.5%, respectively, since 2019, while international travel remains slightly below 2019 levels.
Why does it matter where Chinese people choose to holiday? Before COVID-19, Chinese tourists made 170 million international trips, pumping $248 billion into foreign economies and accounting for about 14% of global tourism spending, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council and Oxford Economics. But the domestic sector is likely to continue to grow, as viral online campaigns and TV series spur interest in lesser-known Chinese places and quirky local culture, and the rest of the world is seen as “dangerous and a bit crazy,” according to digital consultancy Chozan.
