BEIJING – In what appears to be a major pushback, China has managed to recover the figures for domestic tourism above pre-pandemic levels during the five-day May Day break.
China’s Ministry of Tourism recently stated that tourists made 274m trips within the country during the holiday period which is almost 20% higher than in 2019, before the outbreak of Covid-19.
During the trips, tourists spent $21bn (£16.7bn) which is more than twice the amount seen the same time last year; the trips were made mostly from Mainland China to destinations like Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore. Chinese state media says an average of 1.2m Chinese people travelled abroad each day.
“This can be seen as a turning point of China’s tourism sector. The market performance has truly returned to its 2019 level,” Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy told the official state news agency Xinhua.
Though official figures portray tourism recovery in favourable light, experts claim that Chinese travelers are not spending as much as they used to before the pandemic.
Domestic tourists were “trading down” as opposed to “spending up,” Standard Chartered’s Raymond Cheng told the BBC while expressing concerns whether tourism recovery meant recovery of economy as well or it was otherwise.
The travel data shared by ForwardKeys suggests that airline bookings by Chinese tourists travelling abroad were still around half what they were before the pandemic.
It is to be highlighted that before the Covid-19 disrupted travel across the globe, China was the most important source of international tourists, with more than 150m Chinese people taking trips overseas each year.
China had faced international criticism for its handling of the Covid-19 virus as well as managing the fresh variants including Omicron. International experts also took aim at Beijing for keeping the details surrounding Covid-19 secret.
The country had imposed tough travel restrictions on international arrivals from March 28, 2020 when the Covid scare was at its peak across the globe. In December 2022, China shifted from “zero-Covid” to “living with Covid” and finally in March resumes issuance of all categories of visas to foreigners.
