The Chinese tourism tsunami is late
Half a year after China’s reopening, most tourism spending remains trapped at home
China’s “revenge travel” has mostly happened at home so far. Bottlenecks in ramping up international flights are a major factor holding back the globe-trotting Chinese. And it might take a while - significantly longer than many tourism-dependent businesses had initially hoped - for that to return to normal.
Key takeaways
- The country’s domestic travel has bounced back strongly in 2023, after China scrapped its strict pandemic restrictions late last year;
- But Chinese tourists are yet to fly out of the country en masse, after almost three years of isolation - in April, international air passenger numbers were only around a quarter of the level in April 2019;
- Morgan Stanley expects China’s international air capacity to recover to only half of 2019 levels this summer and to just 70% to 80% by the end of 2023.
Get the full story at The Wall Street Journal