Originally Posted by
travelinmanS
China is really doing an about face on visas and foreigners entering the country. Even pre-pandemic they were starting to be much more strict in regards to visas starting around 2017 it became much more of a process to get a visa, biometrics were implemented, etc. At that time people were willing to go through the process for business or tourism but there were complaints/grumblings.
Of course the pandemic came and China decided to completely shut itself off from the world for 3 years. Upon reopening they re-implemented the old policies and waited for the foreigners to come back. I guess it took about 11 months of waiting for them to realize very few people planned to visit China anymore. This, coupled with the poor economic situation here has led to the quickest about face in visa policy I’ve seen in my 20 plus years in China. It’s great for people who want to visit China, but I fear the damage may have been done already and these policies won’t have the impact the officials hope.
Totally agree. 8-10 years ago every 20 something year old in the US was interested in making a trip to China. It started to drop off around 2016, we had a big discussion on flyertalk with jiejie about it for those of you who were around then and remember.
Today, at this moment, I doubt that number would even be 5%. There was limited travel for 3 years and when you speak with younger people they have many other places they would like to go first. Literally no young people I talk to have plans to go to China. And once you get married and have kids, then travel destinations switch to beaches and Orlando. It will take years to improve.
I don't know it will be significantly better in Europe. I have discussed convening production meetings in China with French and German customers and they are saying they will go if they absolutely have to but prefer we move the meetings anywhere else.
Originally Posted by
moondog
I predict the rebound (for both tourism and business) won't be nearly as strong as they're hoping for...news of us being locked in our houses for two months seemed to spread to other countries and had a profound impact on perceptions (e.g. China is no longer on my sister's family vacation list).
Exactly. To say the least, I don't think the wolf warrior press releases helped China's image before the pandemic and then the pandemic management made China's image even worse. There is no active tourism campaign that I have heard about so it will take a heck of a long time before people's minds start to change.
ON the business side, increasingly over the last two years I am being asked if production can be moved out of China, especially with prospective new customers. It's the first question we are asked. And moving production takes a huge effort which involves in person meetings on the ground so that decreases people's availability to travel to China as well.
These are trends which are not going to change either quickly or without more effort on China's part.