Milan Gears Up for Lunar New Year Hoping for Return of Chinese Tourists

Travels and Textiles in Central Asia Textiles expert Chris Aslan explores a crossroads of history where ‘fortunes were made and lost through shimmering silks, life-giving felts and gossamer cottons’. Most travellers know of the Silk Road, but older still are the Wool Road and Cotton Road, whose tightly woven stories Aslan seeks to untangle. 

It's an early spring morning in Milan. The cosmopolitan hub of Italy's north is awakening with a shot of espresso. Many are bleary-eyed after a whirlwind week celebrating the Salone del Mobile, the world's largest furniture-and-design fair. Outside Palazzo Serbelloni, I'm standing in a queue that's snaking around the neoclassical palace. If its weathered stucco walls could talk, they'd tell tales of the palazzo's notable inhabitants, including Napoleon Bonaparte and King Vittorio Emanuele II. Yet this crowd of international and local style setters and design aficionados (mostly in smart sneakers, not the suede loafers of yore) isn't searching for history; it wants to see something new. And Milan, which suddenly feels like the most forward-thinking city in Italy—a place of big ideas, investment, and innovation, busily spouting new subway lines, cutting-edge hotels, and infrastructure ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics—is more than ready to oblige.

Launching its first service from Milan Bergamo in 2009 with operations to Casablanca, the longterm success of the Moroccan route has led to the airline group continually strengthening its presence at the airport.

This program has placed more than 600,000 seats on sale for city break destinations throughout Europe, marking a capacity growth of 10% in comparison to the Winter 23/24 season.

The New Zealand government said on Wednesday it would not require travelers from China to produce a negative Covid-19 test, bucking a trend that has seen a number of nations implement such measures as cases surge in China.

Macau has seen a resurgence of tourists from mainland China since January 8 after the special Chinese administrative region dropped all Covid-19 testing requirements for inbound travellers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

There’s still something vital missing from the global tourism economy, and that’s the presence of Chinese tourists.

Skift Research has been tracking the performance of the travel industry since the start of the pandemic, and we have analyzed all the peaks and troughs, highs and lows for three years now. The last months of 2022 saw little movement in the global Index score as continued growth in demand in some areas was counterbalanced by increased worries about the broader economy.

An end to China’s travel curbs this month is expected to revive demand in the global luxury retail market, which has been starved of mainland visitors for three years, but many consumers now see more reasons to do their high-end shopping locally.

The United States will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travelers from China, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday, joining India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan in taking new measures after Beijing’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 11, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

An elephant camp in Thailand has purchased six new jumbos to welcome tourists and returning Chinese visitors, offering activities from elephant rides to elephant showers, the owner said.