China's Eased Travel Rules Fuel Outbound Interest, But 2019 Levels Still Distant

A shift towards experiential journeys, growing demand for premium travel options – Indians approach to travel is evolving, according to Mukul Sukhani, senior vice president of business development at Mastercard.

Marketers beware: Prior ways of marketing to Chinese consumers, including travelers, won’t work as well today because their preferences changed during the pandemic.

China’s latest loosening of its stringent zero-Covid policy, mostly for domestic tourism, comes across as too little too late, at a time when the rest of the world is living with the virus. 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, January 10, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

A day after China announced some major changes to its controversial zero-Covid policy, Hong Kong on Thursday announced that inbound arrivals would need to undergo daily rapid antigen tests for five days, instead of seven days.

Even though China’s recent relaxation of Covid measures is widely seen as a step forward for travel, Trip.com is still cautious in the very near term as winter is usually a slack season for both business and leisure travel.

India is making a PCR Covid test mandatory for inbound arrivals from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea, from January 1.

Chinese travelers cite financial constraints over the last three years as the leading reason for not wanting to travel abroad even as China decided to end its zero-Covid policy by easing travel restrictions, according to a report.

Online travel agency Trip.com Group hopes that cross-border travel capacity for China will be back to normal by the third quarter of this year.

India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country later this year, as China begins to decline and India’s population growth shows no sign of slowing until 2064. That shift carries huge implications for travel across the globe, and has the potential to rewire the race for attracting global tourists around the world. Skift addressed this in its Megatrends 2023 package in the story India Becoming the New China in the Reordering of Asia Travel.

Having witnessed a stronger than expected recovery in 2022, the Middle East could see international tourist arrivals return to pre-pandemic levels this year, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Data from the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer noted that while all regions enjoyed significant increase in international arrivals in 2022 over the previous year, the Middle East recorded the strongest relative increase as international tourist numbers climbed to 83 percent of pre-pandemic numbers last year. “The region welcomed large events such as Expo 2020 Dubai and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, as well as a highly attended Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia,” noted UNWTO in its report.  “UNWTO anticipates a strong year for the sector even in the face of diverse challenges including the economic situation and continued geopolitical uncertainty,” Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili said. UNWTO noted that over 900 million tourists travelled internationally in 2022, which was double the number of those who travelled in 2021 though still 37 percent below 2019.

Dubai received 14.36 million international overnight visitors in 2022, growing 97 percent year-on-year from the 7.28 million tourist arrivals in 2021, according to the latest data published by Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism. In 2019, the city had welcomed a record 16.73 million international overnight visitors. The strong performance in 2022 features some noteworthy spikes in Dubai’s traditional key markets and strong growth across emerging markets. Dubai remained a first-choice safe travel destination for visitors from the city’s stronghold markets. Western Europe and Gulf regions each accounted for a 21 percent share of arrivals. The Gulf region in particular saw an exponential increase in their share of arrivals from 13 percent in 2021 to 21 percent last year. South Asia contributed 17 percent of total volumes while the Middle East and North Africa region contributed 12 percent, further reinforcing Dubai’s continued appeal to travelers from proximity markets. The Americas accounted for seven percent of arrivals while North Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa each contributed five percent and Australasia accounted for two percent.