How The Steep Decline In Chinese Tourists Will Cost The U.S. More Than $20 Billion

23.08.2023 - 11:11 / forbes.com / Geoff Freeman

Two weeks ago, China announced it is lifting restrictions on group travel to the United States and several other countries, a move that U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo hailed as “a significant win for the U.S. travel and tourism industry.” Then she cut to the heart of the matter: U.S. tourism officials are pining for the return of Chinese tourists, by far the biggest spenders among global travelers.

“Before Covid,” Raimondo said, “as many as three million Chinese travelers visited the United States annually, contributing more than $30 billion to the U.S. economy.” In 2019, 2.8 million Chinese visitors accounted for only 4% of all inbound foreign travelers to the U.S., yet they accounted for 13% of spending. This year, fewer than 850,000 Chinese will travel here, according to the National Travel & Tourism Office (NTTO), the agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that tracks tourism statistics. That 68% drop in traveler volume translates to more than $20 billion that Chinese visitors will not spend in the U.S. this year.

Three months after the official end of the pandemic, the U.S. tourism industry is still in recovery mode. Before Covid, 79.4 million international visitors to the U.S. injected roughly $239 billion into the national economy, accounting for nearly 10% of America’s total exports and services. In 2023, the U.S. expects to welcome 62.8 million foreign visitors–a 21% year-over-year jump but still 21% below pre-Covid numbers. Inbound travel volume to the U.S. is not expected to hit pre-pandemic levels until 2025.

Meanwhile, record numbers of Americans are traveling to Europe and spending money there. “We’ve benefited from international visitation exceeding outbound travel for as long as I can remember,” says Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “It’s only in recent memory–really, post-pandemic–that we’ve seen those numbers shift.”

The fall-off has taken an especially big toll on San Francisco, where Chinese visitors injected over $1.2 billion into the local economy the year before the pandemic.

To be clear, the U.S. has seen a drop in visitors from many countries, but not in equal measures. Just over half of inbound tourism to the U.S. comes from Canada and Mexico, whose visitation is down 19% and 8%, respectively, compared to 2019. Travel volume from the United Kingdom, the No. 3 pre-pandemic visitor source, is down 11%. Much more problematic are the sluggish numbers from what were the fourth- and fifth-biggest tourism sources in 2019. Visitation from Japan and China is down 61% and 70%, respectively. “There’s definitely a dynamic where Asian travel, at least to the United States, is not what it once was,” says Freeman.

Raimondo’s agency has set a