Chinese Tourists Remain Wary of Traveling Overseas
Fear for safety outside China and the region continues to drive uncertainty when booking trips, slowing a global travel recovery
Domestic travel during China’s May holiday week is set to soar, while international travel lags.
Photographer: Li Hongbo/VCG Visual China Group via Getty Images
On the eve of China’s May Labor Day holiday week, more than half of Chinese travelers say they haven’t set plans to go abroad this year, with 31% saying no to international travel altogether, according to a survey published on Wednesday and shared exclusively with Bloomberg.
The return of Chinese tourists abroad is considered essential to the rebound of global tourism. Pre-pandemic, China was the world’s largest source of outbound tourists, contributing $253 billion to the global economy in 2019. There’s ongoing reticence and negligible improvement from early 2023, just prior to the end of the country’s Covid Zero policies, when 40% of Chinese travelers said they had no plans to travel overseas despite easing restrictions.