Bookings for overseas travel during the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which falls between January 21 and January 27 this year, have soared by 540% from a year ago, according to data from the Chinese travel site. Average spending per booking jumped 32%.
The top destinations are in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong. The United States and the United Kingdom also ranked among the top 10. In the years before C-19, China was the world’s most important source of international travelers. Its 155 million tourists spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars beyond its borders in 2019.
“We estimate that Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would benefit the most if China’s travel service imports were to return to 2019 levels,”said Goldman Sachs analysts.
It said they expected China’s outbound international travel to fully recover by the year end. That largess fell precipitously over the past three years as the country essentially closed its borders. But, as China reopens, millions of tourists are poised to return to the world stage, raising hopes of a rebound for the global hospitality industry.
Although international travel may not return immediately to pre-pandemic levels, companies, industries and countries that rely on Chinese tourists will get a boost in 2023, according to analysts.
China averaged about 12 million outbound air passengers per month in 2019, but those numbers fell 95% during the C-19 years, according to Steve Saxon, a partner in McKinsey’s Shenzhen office. He predicts that figure will recover to about 6 million per month by the summer, driven by the pent-up wanderlust of young, wealthy Chinese like Emmy Lu, who works for an advertising company in Beijing.
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