Global Courant
Data from CTrip, China’s largest online travel agency, showed that Singapore remains one of the favorite overseas destinations of Chinese tourists after Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
The number of Chinese visitors to South Korea during Labor Day tripled, compared to the Chinese New Year holiday between Jan. 21 and 27, while the number of Chinese visitors going to Japan doubled during the same period, according to CTrip.
Ms. Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group, which runs CTrip, expects that as travel capacity continues to expand, Chinese travelers will soon seek destinations outside of Asia Pacific, such as Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. -on demand.
Thailand is the clear winner among Chinese tourists, with Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy on track to receive a million visitors from China every month from October – the level last seen before the Covid-19 outbreak. pandemic.
The tourism authority said in May that the country is maintaining its official forecast of Chinese visitors this year at five million, but could reach as high as seven million depending on the number of flights during the peak season between October and March next year.
Indonesia has revised its target for Chinese tourist arrivals to 113,404 Chinese visitors after an unexpected increase between January and March this year.
Southeast Asia’s largest country had initially expected 255,200 visitors from China this year, but is now targeting 361,500 – 18 percent of the two million it received before the pandemic.
Indonesia has also tried to expand the footprint of the Chinese in the archipelago to destinations other than Bali, such as the island of Lombok or Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world, in Central Java.
Factors that have hampered the recovery of outbound tourism in China include high inflation in other countries and growing unfavorable public sentiment against the Chinese, which also emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“While outbound travel orders rose sevenfold this year during Labor Day compared to the same period last year, international flight capacity was less than half of 2019 levels,” the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a May 10 article.
High inflation in countries like Britain and France will discourage middle- and lower-income Chinese tourists, the Economist Group’s research unit said.
“Growing unfavorable public sentiment against Chinese citizens, which emerged during the pandemic, and recent geopolitical tensions will also impact travel decisions,” the article said.
Still, tourists visiting Singapore said they would make a return visit. Ms. Wang said she would like to go to the zoo and Universal Studios next time.
“Hopefully it will be less hot,” she added. “I also really like the Rain Vortex and the wide variety of shops at Jewel.”
Ms. Feng Chao, 37, who works in finance in Beijing, visited Singapore with her mother for two days in May as part of a five-day tour of Singapore and Malaysia, visiting Sentosa, Haji Lane and Mount Faber.
She chose Singapore and Malaysia because of their friendliness to China. “Singapore’s law and order also gives travelers a sense of security,” she said.
“I will definitely come back because Singapore is so comfortable. The people also speak Chinese, so there is not much of a language barrier. I also like the durian ice cream wrapped in bread or cake that I can just buy from street vendors,” she said.
