Economics
Asia’s Hungry Travel Sector Is Missing a Key Ingredient: China
- Visitors from mainland China made up 40% of Asia’s tourists
- But strict measures returning home make travel ‘unattractive’
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Asian countries anticipating a sharp tourism rebound may find that their much-awaited reopening won’t have the same boost without Chinese travelers.
China, the region’s largest source of foreign tourists pre-pandemic, requires returning residents to undergo mandatory quarantine of as long as three weeks. Alongside that and other travel hurdles, including piles of paperwork, testing and insurance requirements, any trip abroad in the new normal remains “an unattractive proposition,” said Wellian Wiranto, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.