The outward journey is about to resume.
On December 26, the “General Plan for the Implementation of “Class B and B Management” of Novel Coronavirus Infection” was released, requiring Chinese citizens to resume outbound travel in an orderly manner in accordance with the international epidemic situation and various service assurance capabilities.
Additionally, nucleic acid testing and centralized isolation for all personnel after entry will be canceled. Those who have a normal health declaration and no abnormalities in the routine quarantine at the port customs can be released to enter the society. Number control measures for international passenger flights such as “five” and passenger load factor restrictions will be canceled.
Search volume for outbound travel has soared, and these places are popular
After the news was released, the outbound travel search volume on the travel platform skyrocketed instantly.
Qunar platform data shows that within 15 minutes of the news being released, the instant search volume of international air tickets increased by 7 times, and the popular destinations were Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
According to Ctrip data, within half an hour of the release, searches for popular overseas destinations on the Ctrip platform increased 10 times over the previous year.
For many outbound destinations that were popular before the epidemic, search interest began to increase significantly during the Spring Festival period of the Year of the Tiger in 2023. Ctrip data shows that Macao, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the United Kingdom became the top ten destinations with the fastest growing search volume. The search volume of products related to group tours and releases during the Spring Festival increased by 6 times.
According to data from the travel platform itself, after the news was released, the instant search volume for international air tickets across the entire platform increased by 850%; instant visa search volume increased 10 times. The top three overseas destinations that Chinese tourists pay the most attention to are: Japan, South Korea and Thailand. The most popular destinations for outbound flights are mainly Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Los Angeles and Singapore. The top users of the search for outbound travel are from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
The overall price of the wine machine for outbound trips is expected to decrease
It is worth noting that although the total amount of outbound travel from China has been slow since the beginning of the epidemic, the per capita outbound tourist consumption has not decreased, but increased. Ctrip data shows that per capita spending on outbound airline tickets and luxury hotels on the mainland has increased by 64% and 40% respectively over the past six months compared to before the epidemic.
Fang Zexi, an industry analyst at the Ctrip Research Institute, believes that as tourism supply recovers and inflation is brought under control by major global economies, the overall price of wine for outbound travel is expected to return to pre-epidemic level level; however, due to the recovery of supply-side facilities and manpower, there are still short-term constraints, so it will still take some time for the price to come down.
But from a local point of view, the per capita expenditure of luxury hotels in Asian countries has decreased. According to Ctrip data, the prices of five-star hotels in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and other countries in the past six months have fallen by 20-30% compared to prices before the epidemic. For example, the per capita spending of five-star hotels in Thailand and Vietnam decreased by about 20% compared to the same period in 2019; the price of five-star hotels in Malaysia fell by 30%; Japan and South Korea decreased by about 20%.
According to Lan Xiang, director of Qunar Big Data Research Institute, the adjustment of entry-exit policies will help promote the orderly resumption of international flights, and the number of incoming and outgoing passengers will increase in the short term. With the gradual normalization of the supply and demand ratio of inbound and outbound air tickets, the overall price of international air tickets will gradually decline. However, compared to the average price before the epidemic, the current international air ticket prices are still at a high level, and it will take some time for the overall international flights to return to normal levels. For routes with a large number of flights, such as Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia, airfare prices may increase. With the implementation of the policy and the restoration of airlines’ operational capacity, the summer of 2023 could usher in peak entry and exit.
Press the “throttle button” to resume outbound tourism
It is worth noting that there are still some restrictions on the “supply side” of short-term visas. A Ctrip visa official said the current issuance of new or expired passports is still mainly for business, study abroad and visiting relatives; Most overseas countries have opened up visa processing, but due to the domestic epidemic situation, many consulates do not have enough staff to apply for visas Delay.
But even so, Chinese users’ enthusiasm for outbound travel is still uncontrollable. According to Ctrip visa data, the number of overseas visa applications has increased more than 12 times since December 7 compared to last year: Singapore, Japan, South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries are more popular in applying for visas.
Fang Zeqian believes that the release of the new regulations has ensured a smoother environment for cross-border travel from the political level and will effectively mobilize tourists’ willingness to travel. The spring of outbound travel has arrived.
The “China Outbound Tourism Annual Development Report (2022-2023)” recently released by the China Tourism Academy shows that from 2020 to 2022, the number of outbound tourists to my country will decrease by 400 million, and outbound tourism will be severely damaged . The restart of outbound tourism inspired by the new policy will effectively restore the confidence of tourists and release the backlog of demand for outbound tourism during the epidemic. The implementation of the new policy will press the “accelerator button” for the recovery of the outbound tourism.
[Redattore responsabile: Xu Dan]
