China on Thursday announced the resumption of group tours to dozens of more overseas destinations, including the U.S. and Japan, a move that could see the revival of the country's $270 billion outbound travel spending after a COVID-era ban relaxation.
China's outbound group travel market was halted in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the country has optimized its epidemic response, measures have been taken to lift restrictions on its people's overseas trips.
Thursday's announcement is the latest move, which listed some 78 countries, including the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and the majority of European countries, bringing the total number of destinations for group tours to 138.
Source: Sante Cableways
Swift, positive response
The announcement has stimulated an immediate and positive response from the domestic travel industry.
After its release, A-share outbound tourism leading stocks Caissa Tosun Development Co., Ltd. went up, while UTour Group Co., Ltd. kept increasing, reaching a highest rise of 5.45 percent, according to financial agencies.
Data from Ctrip, a leading Chinese travel service provider, showed that searches for outbound travel products surged by more than 20 times, with online inquiries for outbound products flooding in soon after the release of the announcement.
On China's largest platform for lifestyle services, Meituan Dianping, the views of overseas hotels soared seven times. Among them, the views of accommodation in Japan and South Korea increased 12 times and 15 times, respectively.
Visa consultation has also risen simultaneously. According to LY.com, an online travel agency, the numbers of inquiries for visas on its platform nearly tripled compared to the same time the day before, and inquiries on visas for countries included in the announcement have climbed sharply.
"This is a milestone bulge for the full recovery of Chinese outbound tourism and will certainly give a strong impetus to the resumption of international flights, said Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Spring Tours, the largest private travel service in China.
The company launched its group tour programs to Austria, the Czech Republic and Japan on the online platform within half an hour after the announcement was made.
Revival of world's largest outbound travel market
China previously resumed group tours to 60 countries over two stages on a pilot basis earlier this year, including groups to Russia, France, Spain, Italy and other European countries, as well as countries in Southeast Asia and Africa.
"With international passenger flights continuing to resume and more Chinese people ready to travel abroad, in order to make outbound tours easy, starting from August 10, China will further resume outbound group tours to more countries and regions," said the Chinese Foreign Ministry hours after the announcement.
Notably, the announcement allows Chinese group tours to South Korea for the first time in six years, as China banned such tours in 2017 in response to the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea.
Compared with the already resumed individual outbound travel, the resumption of group tours is a much bigger business for international and domestic travel agencies. Analysts and experts within the sector have expressed positive predictions since China decided to resume outbound group travel.
Xu Xiaolei, chief brand officer of CYTS Tours, expects China's outbound group tours this year to reach a level equaling 60 to 80 percent of that of 2019, the year before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
China had the largest outbound tourism market in the world in 2019, when Chinese people took 166 million trips abroad, spending $270 billion in total, according to the World Tourism Organization.
The recovery of China's outbound travel market has been obvious this year, as travel platform data shows that users have a strong willingness to travel, and the number of searches related to outbound travel has exceeded the level of the same period in 2019. "The whole industry is full of expectations for the future," said Chen Ruiliang, Ctrip's senior vice president.
According to Margit Molnar, head of the China Desk at the OECD Economics Department, consumption has rebounded strongly and demand for tourism services has been growing after China optimized its pandemic response. "Chinese tourists are returning to international destinations, helping to revitalize the battered global economy," said Margit.
