China’s relaxation of COVID-19 rules for international arrivals has raised hopes that its multi-billion dollar travel business will soon flourish again but countries longing for the return of Chinese tourists will likely face more of a wait. | Reuters ...
Travellers walk with their luggage at Beijing Capital International Airport, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Beijing, China December 27, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
China was the world’s largest outbound tourism market before COVID shut down global travel, with its overseas visitors spending $127.5 billion on travel in 2019. “This will contribute to the recovery of international air traffic between Mainland China and Europe,” a spokesperson said.Duty free retailer Dufry expects the changes to have a “positive effect at the airports that the Chinese use and where we have a presence,” a spokesperson said.
Data from travel platform Ctrip showed that within half an hour of the announcement, searches for popular cross-border destinations had increased 10-fold. The Qunar platform said it saw a seven-fold increase in international flight searches within 15 minutes.But an immediate surge in international travel is not widely expected.
Liu Simin, an official with the tourism arm of the China Society for Futures Studies, a research institute based in Beijing, said international travel won’t recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.
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