Foreign Tourism
 

China apparently wants foreign tourism, but foreign tourists aren't coming.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/asia-pa...e-staying-away
Inbound tourism saw a slight recovery in the first half, with 52,000 people arriving in mainland China on trips arranged by travel agencies, according to the latest data published by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. But the number lags far behind the figure of 4.88 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2019, shortly before China closed its door to the world in early 2020.
https://archive.is/CDoLP
As in past years, nearly half of the visitors came from the self-ruled island of Taiwan and the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau, rather than farther-away places like the U.S. or Europe.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/flag...-rules-4268014
Those who come to China to participate in trade negotiations, expos, conferences or to invest will be able to obtain visas on arrival, provided they present the necessary documents.
* Unclear which countries from this article, discussion for this is better in a visa thread

Alipay/Wechat linking to international credit cards is definitely a move to increase tourism

Some speculation/discussion

I think a lot of the problem stems from the fact that mainland China was the last of the major markets to open up, and thus people already booked their Asian holidays to other places like Thailand, Japan, etc.....

Furthermore, outbound group tours from China have been restricted to only a handful of markets until recently. When little outbound demand, the Chinese carriers were not rapid to expand their fréquences = fewer flights from outside countries to China.

All the points listed in that blog post are valid, but wouldn't turn off a seasoned traveller.

There are also the new visa difficulties: have to visit for fingerprinting, have to make an appointment for it long in advance, and have to fill out an exceptionally invasive visa application.

Well, "China" is not a monolithic entity. Like any other county, there's factions with different motives and interests.

The faction that wants more tourists is certainly not the faction that revised the visa application.

That's part of the reason. Other reasons I can think of
- China to say it lightly is not treated well in the global press, so people are generally not interested. Includes sentiment about government, HK, etc
- A lot of expats who lived in China left and told their friends not to go
- Students who left China for winter break in the beginning of 2020 largely got stuck outside for years so they told their friends not to go
- Visa requirement deters a lot of people. India gave visa on arrival to US citizens at the end of 2014. Brazil was eVisa/visa free for US citizens for the Olympics and from 2018 to end of September 2023.
- Quarantine requirement during COVID was viewed as overly harsh especially after other countries dropped theirs a long time ago
- Chinese people who live overseas were also not super enthusiastic about the quarantine and many of my friends visited China for the first time this year since 2019

I do NOT think that language barrier, Alipay/WeChat, real name verification, needing a phone number, firewall, foreigners can’t stay at hotel are a problem. All of these other reasons come before that

Visa hassles has to be at the top of the list. Adjusted for GDP, I think the Chinese visa is probably the worst in the world for "how annoying is it to get" for a major country. US visas are more hassle by absolute value, but the all countries in China's peer group (and most higher HDI countries) have better visa policies.

A e-visa system that lets people who just want a 30-day single entry tourist visa skip the consulate visit would do wonders, for example. But there won't be any improvement while the trade/tech war is in progress.

Imagine the reaction if you told your friends in 1983 that you were going to spend your vacation visiting China.

Then imagine the reaction if you told them that today.

I wasn’t born yet. Enlighten me?

1983: "Wow. You're going to CHINA. That sounds cool!"

While I do agree for first time visitors, those aren't deterrents but for those that have visited China, those barriers would greatly reduce their chance of visiting again, or encourage their family and friends to visit. Don't under estimate the power of word of mouth advertising!

Based on my observations, they have increased flights at every opportunity, and airfares have plummeted as a result. For example, China-SE Asia flights now cost less than $200 each way. As recently as February, getting down there for less than $1000 was challenging.

True, but didn't the gouvernement just recently approve group tours to places like Germany, US, Australia, etc.... and I think France and Italy back a couple months ago. So the foreign tourism from European countries might have been effected. For sure, multiple factors at work here.

I don't follow the group tour industry, so I don't know; I was responding to the "Chinese carriers were not rapid to expand their frequencies" part of your post because the opposite is the case, regardless of where demand is coming from (i.e. inbound, outbound, business, leisure).

I think another major issue is that China does very poorly when it comes to exporting its culture. Japan and Korea absolutely dominate the international cultural scene in pretty much every Asian countries I've lived in, and most people as a result want to visit there more than they want to visit China. That is unlikely to change any time soon given how censorship in China severely restricts the development of the cultural scene the country would need to compete.

Still have in my mind that draconic lockdowns can be implemented any minute - thank you, I go to Bali.

Very, very true.

You can do both because the Chinese airlines are finally playing ball again:D

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ffddde980c.jpg

Well, I'm a foreigner and I'm technically going to China (Hong Kong). Airfare on CX is already booked. Can't wait!

I believe part of the reason why fares to ASEAN are cheap is partly due to capacity dumping given that the West is sparring with China over trade disputes and overflying Russia

Just try to book a stopover of a few days in China on those EUR-SEA fares. The cost'll go up quite a bit.

Grounded irplanes don't generate any revenues, so they are flying to places where they are welcome (e.g. Europe and SE Asia).

This is very true but does not explain the 2019>2023 drop. I recently heard about https://www.wuxiaworld.com/ where people are translating Chinese light novels into English
Korea and Japan do a good job at this and I view Kpop as a form of soft power.

My colleague from the U.S. went through a visa agent last month. No fingerprints necessary.

China has a rather generous TWOV (transit without visa) scheme. Also, there are a bunch of countries for which visa-free tourism is permitted; Serbia, Brunei, Japan, Singapore, and Bahamas come to mind.

I applied for a visa in April with no agent and didn’t get fingerprinted

the application is also not that invasive compared to a US or Schengen visa (yes, many people need a visa to go to Schengen countries)

Agents that can bypass the consulate visit completely (I.e not just fingerprinting) are useful. Since you live near a consulate, the visit/appointment isn't a big deal for you, but many people don't have time to fly off to SF or NY for a few days just to get a visa they might use once or twice per year.

Several Chinese embassies have this month posted a notice that the fingerprinting requirement is being suspended till year-end for those applying for one- or two-entry visas.

Notice on the Latest Adjustments on Fingerprints Collection of Visa Application

The real reason is that China has gone out of its way over the last 5 years to position itself as a country few people want to visit.

2008 was peak China. People were coming here and raving about it. Everyone I told “I live in China” was impressed and talked about the awesome Olympics, incredible growing infrastructure and economic growth.

When I tell people now “I live in China” the most common response is “Why”? Or “I hope you can get out of there soon”.

Very few tourists want to visit China now.

I think the poor perception of China is the number 1 issue, not visa. If you look at HK and Japan, both don't require Visas for most developed country visitors. HK tourism has rebounded to only 40% of pre-pandemic levels while Japan numbers has rebounded to 70% of 2019 numbers despite lack of Chinese group tourists (only recently restarted).

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...bour-shortages
https://www.tourism.jp/en/tourism-da...o%20May%202019.

Don't forget that with modernization and urban renewal, China isn't the interesting and very different place to visit that it was in the '80s.

While I agree with you in the general sense (i.e. cities are morphing into shopping malls), interesting and rural is never far away.

I got lost in the area pictured below last weekend, and it's less than 10 miles from where I live.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6be9fb6d17.jpg

There were also street vendors selling live pigeons and the like.

This stuff may interest you and a few others, but it ain't going on any China tourist brochure

I think interest in traveling to China for pure tourism (not business or visiting family) was declining before the pandemic. COVID and other recent events have accelerated the trend. From a PR perspective, nothing China projects today indicates it is a country that welcomes foreign visitors while other countries are actively marketing to overseas tourists.

The lack of interest in China tourism from the US-aligned west is a direct result of the trade/tech war and an aspect of decoupling. The saturation of negative China coverage in Five Eyes media that started in 2018 when the trade war started accomplished its intended effect.

China's reactions do not help, of course, but China did not start the decoupling.

Things started changing markedly in 2013 in concert with China's drive to be more self sufficient via top down policies. While I don't think killing off inbound tourism was ever a stated goal in Zhongnanhai, promoting it hasn't been a priority in either.

The figures for HK are misleading. The 40% calculation is done using the first five months of 2023. The border between China and HK was only opened in February and Covid measures in HK weren't removed until March. You need to look at the numbers for April and May to get a better sense of where things are.

HK May number is 56%, but in May there were no Chinese group travelers to Japan (Chinese tourists accounted for almost of 1/3 of visitors in 2019), so Japan's recovery would've been even stronger (easily 80%+)
https://www.discoverhongkong.com/con...Arrivals-E.pdf

HK is suffering and will continue to suffer from being viewed by many potential tourists as just another Chinese city now. In addition, many people used HK as a gateway to the mainland even up to 2019 when making a business trip (although admittedly much less than in the early 2000's); they'd stop in HK for a few days before or after their trip to the mainland. Now, with business travel to China not really booming, I'd expect HK to suffer from this as well.

Japan is set up for a much stronger future as a tourist destination than either the mainland or HK.

Why?

Other Asian tourist prefer visiting Japan over China by a wide margin. I expect this to continue and the increasing interest from western tourists in Japan to also continue going forward.

China will need to really go on a charm offensive to win back foreign tourists. Right now they don’t seem to have any interest in doing so and they are also currently overwhelmed with domestic tourism so maybe the need isn’t so great either.