one in survey Last year, Chinese travelers said they were most interested in visiting Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
But they’re not going there – at least not yet.
Flight Restrictions, Visa Issues and Entry Rules only hit them Complicating matters for Chinese residents willing to travel abroad.
Chinese travelers favored Southeast Asia for trips during the Lunar New Year holidays, which ended in early February, according to Ctrip, Trip.com Group’s Chinese-language booking website.
Travel bookings by Chinese residents outside the mainland grew 640% from last year’s holiday period, according to Ctrip data – and Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Chiang Mai, Manila and Bali were the top destinations.
Ctrip said overseas hotel bookings by mainland Chinese travelers also quadrupled from last year. Yet one place stood out — Bangkok, where “hotel occupancy increased more than 33 times during the holiday,” said cTrip.
Top Places for Tour Groups
Thomas Lee, Trip.com Group’s senior director of international business operations, said Thailand is the top choice for Chinese tour groups for now.
Lee said SeaTrip’s first group tour left on February 7 with passengers bound for Bangkok and the nearby beach city of Pattaya.
The second most popular destination for group tours is Maldives, followed by Egypt, he said.
China resumed group tours organized by travel agencies on 6 February. Visits to 20 countries are allowed, including Southeast Asian countries Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Laos, as well as the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Hungary, Cuba and Russia.
Group tours to Japan, South Korea and Vietnam are currently not permitted.
why is thailand popular
One of the main reasons Chinese tourists visit Thailand is because it is easier for them to enter, said Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand.Squawk Box Asia” monday.
,At the end of the day, we were able to open up our country with very few restrictions,” he said.
He added that Thailand has “tried every possible way to ensure that our Chinese tourists as well as tourists from all over the world can come to our country to spend their holidays.”
A day after China relaxed its borders in early January, Thailand announced that all incoming visitors must be vaccinated to enter.
But within days the Thai authorities abandoned this rule, Amid China’s growing anger towards countries imposing new rules on Chinese residents.
Charnvirakul said Thailand’s policy U-turn was related to science, not fear of harassing Chinese travelers, adding that “more than 75% of our [Covid] antibodies both from vaccination and from being infected.”
He said Thailand is expecting 30 million tourists this year, of which 12 million to 15 million could come from China.
“Chinese tourists are very important to our tourism industry,” Charnvirakul said.
The Chinese are not the only ones choosing Thailand as a holiday destination.
Russia was Thailand’s seventh-largest tourism market in 2019, but in November 2022, Russian visitors were third in terms of tourism arrivals, behind travelers from Malaysia and India, according to Reuters. At the end of 2022, one in four visitors to Phuket was Russian, said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, according to a Reuters article,
Russians see their tourism options dwindle in 2022, when Many countries stopped flying in and out of Russia In the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
top concerns
,Currently, the top concern for customers is visa issues,” said Trip.com Group’s Lee.
Chinese travelers have been barred from obtaining visas to places such as South Korea and Japan after both countries stopped processing them over concerns about China’s recent Covid-19 surge. South Korea announced last week that it would Resume Issuance of Short-Term Visas According to Reuters, for Chinese travelers.
Elsewhere, Chinese residents face long wait times to obtain visas due to high demand. Before the pandemic, visa applications to enter the EU were processed within days, but applicants are now facing delays waiting period of up to two monthsAccording to the website SchengenVisaInfo.com.
Besides visas, Chinese travelers are also worried about getting sick, Li said.
That’s why group tours are primarily being booked by “post-90s and post-80s” travelers, he said, referring to Chinese generational terms for people born during the 1990s and 1980s, respectively.
price may not be a problem
Rising travel prices may be of less concern to some Chinese travelers.
A report published by Morgan Stanley on February 7 shows Rising demand for high-end and luxury hotels among Chinese consumers,
According to the report, interest in luxury hotels increased from 18% to 34% from 2022 to 2023, while “mentions of budget hotels and mid-range hotels fell universally”.
More travelers expect hotel stays to be their top travel expense as well, rising from 17% in 2017 to 20% in 2023.
Travelers may also need to be prepared to open their wallets in places like Thailand, which has long been popular with backpackers and budget travelers.
Average hotel booking prices in Bangkok increased by nearly 70% in late January, according to Ctrip.