Outbound tourism set for rapid rebound
Travelers eager to take advantage of nation’s optimized COVID-19 policies, say industry players
After outbound tourism came to a near standstill over the past three years, tour operators are seeing a rapid recovery of the industry with travelers eager to take advantage of the nation’s optimized COVID-19 policies.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Feb 3 that travel agencies could resume booking group tours to the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions starting Feb 6.
The Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council also announced on Feb 3 the normalization of group tours between the Chinese mainland and the two SARs.
Mainland and Hong Kong railway authorities have agreed to remove the requirement for passengers traveling to Hong Kong on the GuangzhouHong Kong High-speed Railway to present negative nucleic acid test results starting Feb 6.
Under the new policy, overseas travelers departing the two regions who have not traveled to other international destinations within seven days of departure can enter the mainland without a negative nucleic acid test result.
In late January, the tourism ministry announced that starting Feb 6, travel agencies could resume organizing group tours to 20 countries and regions, including Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Switzerland.
Thanks to the new policies, tourism operators are expecting to see a boom in outbound travel.
Travel portal Tuniu said that as of the afternoon on Feb 6, bookings for overseas trips on its platform had surged 324 percent from the previous day.
Bookings made for outbound travel this week are double the number of those made in the previous week, the travel portal said.
Early on Feb 6, the first tour group departed from Guangzhou, Guangdong province, to travel to Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, marking the resumption of outbound group tours.
Zhao Wenzhi, president of GZL International Travel Service, said over 500 tours organized by his company were to foreign destinations.
“Although outbound travel had been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the previous three years, the company never stopped its contact, communication and exchanges with foreign counterparts, tourism departments, hotels and related organizations to discuss the resumption of business,” Zhao said.
Among the 20 selected destinations for group tours, Thailand, the Maldives and Singapore remain the most popular choices for Chinese travelers, travel agencies said.
Hong Kong and Macao are also expected to attract more visitors and tourism revenue. Information from travel agencies shows their growing popularity as travel destinations after COVID-19 control and entry policies were eased in early January.
Online travel agency Trip.com Group said that searches for tour packages to Hong Kong and Macao rose three times since December.
Yu Dunde, CEO of Tuniu, said outbound tourism is still in the preliminary stage of recovery, adding that the high price of flights and limited direct flights to overseas destinations may deter domestic travelers. He predicted that the market will show a stronger rebound in the second quarter of this year.