I suppose things will change a lot by this time next year hopefully, but so far a few months into China's re-opening, there aren't many foreign tourists around. Life on the ground has gotten back to normal though. There are heaps of domestic tourists and Shanghai was buzzing with crowds. So even though international tourism is still in a depression, the tourist sights are not empty at all. Locals have a lot of trouble finding airplane seats out of the country for vacation, so they're still touring within China.

I tried both of Shanghai's airports on this trip and their international sections were deserted. Flights are still nowhere near prepandemic levels so going through immigration and security were a breeze. I'll post another trip report on my outbound flight where I pretty much had the entire Pudong new satellite terminal to myself.

There are still some administrative hurdles such as applying for the health QR code for both arriving and leaving China, while some cities have also sampled inbound arrivals for COVID tests. On this trip in particular, the choice of airline proved the most important consideration. It's something I could control whereas the airport arrival experience I need to take it as is.