Skift Take
Sure, the world has missed Chinese tourists for far too long, but if you are a destination looking for that one elusive answer to what the new Chinese traveler will look like, we recommend you stop now.
For more than two decades, outbound travel from China was a major rising catalyst for global travel, an economic engine spurred by the emerging middle class in the country of 1.4 billion people. Chinese travel could be felt from Vancouver to Dubai to Singapore with destinations becoming reliant on the steady stream of easily spending tourists.
Accounting for almost one-fifth of global tourism spending, Chinese tourists spent $255 billion overseas and made 166 million overseas trips in 2019, according to the United Nations' World Tourism Organization.
Between 2009 and 2019, the number of outbound Chinese tourists rose 12.8 percent a year on an average, compared to the global average of 5.1 percent.
Nothing seemed it could be a threat to that vibrant trend. That is, until the pandemic.
For three years, this drive force was eliminated from the global stage as China enforced strict, zero-Covid policies that put the country into lockdown.
China registered an average of around 12 million outbound air passengers per month in 2019, those numbers fell 95 percent during the Covid years.
Today, as China has opened up its borders finally, the world must prepare itself for a new kind of Chinese traveler, one that is more reticent and guarded, and certainly one that may not be as willing to hop on a plane and fly across the world as readily as in 2019.
Remember the archetypal Chinese tourists trooping behind a flag-wielding tour director at some world heritage site? Well, in 2023, they are an outdated cliché at best.
Like most of the travel industry being forced to adapt to new norms after the pandemic, so too will it have to figure out ways to serve a new Chinese traveler.
First things first, to attract Chinese tourists, destinations need to be more welcoming and should have easier entry rules for Chinese travelers, according to Steve Saxon, partner in McKinsey Shenzhen and leader of Asia travel practice.
“Thailand now offers straightforward e-visas for Chinese. Middle East and Singapore are also performing strongly,” Saxon said.
China's largest online travel agency Trip.com Group’s leading Chinese language platform Ctrip’s data revealed the release of pent-up demand as the Lunar New Year holiday marked the first major holiday following the removal of mainland China’s border restrictions.
Overall outbound (non-mainland China)