Gazing into the future of the travel sector in China

ITB China News spoke with Aaron Goldring, Senior Economist, Tourism Economics, in an exclusive interview about the future of the travel sector as a whole in China.

He began by discussing Chinese outbound travel, which restarted in 2023. Given the attractiveness and size of this market, different stakeholders in the travel industry are keeping a close eye on the progress being made. He noted that the initial stages did witness a notable rebound in outbound travel, but it was limited to an extent by capacity constraints – both in terms of aviation capacity and delays in the processing of travel documentation. He was, however, optimistic: “Outbound travel gathered pace in the second half of 2023 and we anticipate that the number of outbound trips taken by Chinese travellers in 2024 will almost double relative to 2023.”

The Senior Economist outlined that if China adresses capacity concerns, its recovery pattern should follow that of its neighbours: “Outbound travel from both Thailand and Singapore is expected to recover fully in 2024, with outbound travel from Vietnam to finish just short. All three countries opened earlier than China and swiftly addressed their capacity constraints to allow for a quick recovery to both inbound and outbound travel. This suggests once capacity is restored in China, a full recovery of outbound travel will follow,” he said.

With regard to inbound travel, Mr Goldring highlighted a couple of initiatives that China is taking, the first being the removal of several barriers to entry for key source markets in Asia and Europe. Mutual visa waiver programmes in place with Singapore and Thailand allow easy access for citizens from both countries to visit China. China has also recently relaxed its visa policy for six more European countries (Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg) to enter visa-free for up to 15 days from March. This follows a similar relaxed visa policy for France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain in December last year. China is also investing heavily in updating its tourism infrastructure including its electronic payment systems, optimising payment services for international visitors. Continued visa-policy changes and increased tourism marketing can make China more attractive for tourism in the short term and accelerate this recovery. As a result of these policy changes and infrastructure investments, Tourism Economics expects longer haul markets to contribute more to growth in Chinese inbound travel from 2026 to 2031 than they have in the decade pre-pandemic.

展望中国旅游行业的未来

旅游经济资深经济学家Aaron Goldring先生接受ITB China News独家专访，分享了他对中国旅游行业未来的观点和看法。

Goldring先生首先谈到了2023年中国出境旅游的重新启动。考虑到中国市场的规模和影响，旅游行业从业者都在密切关注中国出境游市场的进展。他指出，恢复初期确实出现了出境旅游的明显反弹，但航空运力和旅行文件处理的容量限制在一定程度上限制了反弹幅度。然而，他对未来表示乐观：“2023年下半年出境旅游步入增长快车道，我们预计2024年中国游客出境旅游人数将翻倍。”

作为资深经济学家，Goldring先生预计如果市场容量的限制问题得以解决，中国旅游市场的复苏节奏应该与亚洲其他国家类似：“预计泰国和新加坡的出境旅游将在2024年完全恢复，越南的出境旅游也紧随其后。这三个国家比中国更早开放，并迅速解决了容量限制，使得入境和出境旅游迅速恢复。这表明一旦限制解决，出境旅游将完全恢复到疫情前的状态。”

关于入境旅游，Goldring先生列举了中国正在采取的一系列举措，其中之一是取消了对亚洲和欧洲主要来源市场的几项入境障碍。中国与新加坡和泰国签署的相互免签协议使得两国公民能够轻松地访问中国。最近，中国还放宽了六个欧洲国家（瑞士、爱尔兰、匈牙利、奥地利、比利时、卢森堡）的签证政策，从2024年3月起这些国家可以获得15天免签。此前，中国在去年12月为法国、德国、意大利、荷兰和西班牙等国家也放宽了类似的签证政策。同时，中国还大力投资更新旅游基础设施，包括其电子支付系统，优化国际游客的支付服务等。签证政策利好消息和旅游营销的增加，可在短期内让中国变得更具吸引力，加速入境游市场的复苏。由于这些政策变化和基础设施投资，Goldring先生预计，2026年至2031年，远途的入境客源市场对中国入境旅游增长的贡献将超过疫情前十年的水平。