China takes a turn in handling the pandemic. After three years since Wuhan alerted the first cases of atypical pneumonia, shortly after the unpublished wave of protests Due to the “Covid Zero” policy and with the vast majority of countries already treating Covid-19 as an endemic disease, Beijing has decided tab move. And he did so by making its borders permeable, which from 8 January will be freed from the onerous conditions it imposes on travelers who now disembark there.
The provision has a clear political, social, health and economic reading, but if there is one field in which it is already generating anticipation, it is that of tourism, on which China has a lot to say.
What did China just decide? move on. Or start doing it, at least. This week, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) announced a significant easing of requirements for people entering the country: instead of the five days of hotel quarantine and three days of home confinement that are now required, the mandatory isolation it became three weeks—, the authorities will only ask visitors for a PCR performed during the previous 48 hours to leave the country of origin and to prove that they are free from the disease.
They rise additionally The duty receive a code with the approval of the Chinese authorities e The restrictions on the number of international flights and the passenger capacity that airlines are now interested in. Although the details are not known and there can be no talk of an immediate reopening of the nation, the new policy represents a profound change from the line it has maintained until now. Furthermore, the SSN assures that it will “optimize” the processes to facilitate the procedures that allow obtaining visas for business travel, work, study or family reunification.
What about Chinese travellers? The authorities have anticipated that they will resume travel abroad by Chinese citizens “in an orderly manner”, addressing issues such as disease drift internationally. Beyond this general guideline, no dates or details on how the change will be implemented have been specified. Chinese tourism has so far been held back by the pandemic. In 2021 the authorities hardened conditions for the issuance and renewal of passports and in the spring they warned that they would limit travel for “non-essential reasons”. Reuters assures that there are no official restrictions on Chinese people traveling abroad, but the easing of repatriation rules will now make it easier for them to travel.
How did the Chinese react? Go in search of destinations. Quoting the multinational Trip.com Group, CNBC ensures that just half an hour after the Chinese authorities’ announcement, searches for overseas travel for the Lunar New Year have skyrocketed to the highest level in three years. Among the destinations that have attracted the most interest would be Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia or Australia.
Reuters notes a similar trend on the Qunar platform and that the sector itself is starting to reflect on how to prepare for the change of scenery: VariFlight forecasts, for example, a strong recovery in flights to and from the Asian giant for May and United Airlines Holdings would evaluate the demand of the market and the environment to decide when to strengthen its operations.
Can you expect a “boom” in the industry? The change has generated anticipation, but there are those who call for calm and exclude an imminent reactivation of Chinese tourism. The details of what the “orderly” restoration of foreign travel will look like are yet to be specified, and an economy and operations very marked by three years of the pandemic could weigh on demand. Also the wave of infections that the country is facing, which in December saw the same as Beijing there was a big epidemic. Liu Simin, an official of the China Society for Future Studies, calculate for example that international travel probably won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.
“It takes time for people to gain confidence after many have lost their jobs or earned less money,” Liu points out. Another recently published study by consultancy Oliver Wyman also concludes that more than half of Chinese respondents will wait months or even a year before resuming international travel after borders open.
What was the response of the destinations? Doubts and the legacy of three years of pandemic both on demand and on the operation itself are not the only challenges that tourists who want to leave China will have to face. The level of infections recorded in the Asian giant has generated suspicions in other countries that they could become recipients of Chinese tourism content from 2020. The reason: fear of the arrival of infected visitors. The United States, Italy, Japan or Taiwan have already announced that they will require travelers to the Asian giant to undergo a PCR.
“Concern has increased in Japan because it is difficult to understand the true extent of the situation”, the Japanese prime minister acknowledged this week, Fumio Kishida, after announcing that a negative test will be required of all Chinese travelers from December 30. In those cases where the result is positive, they would be forced to maintain a week of quarantine. A similar decision was taken by the United States, who does not hide his distrust of Beijing’s management of the outbreaks. “There is growing international concern about the ongoing COVID-19 surges in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, reported by the republic,” admit US officials an ABC news.
What’s the background?. The profound change applied by the Chinese authorities in their “COVID Zero” policy, which has marked the life and economy of the country in recent years and has caused discomfort to a part of the population, who did not hesitate to take to the streets to demonstrate it. In recent weeks, the Chinese authorities had been announcing a relaxation sensitive to the restrictions, but now they have decided to go one step further: “From January 8, China will downgrade the management of the disease from class A to class B”, picked up Xinhua as part of a strategy that will include posting infections and deaths once a month.
Why is Chinese tourism important? That China is preparing to reopen its tourist flow could remain minor news were it not for its enormous social and, above all, economic impact. The data is more than eloquent. In 2019, the last year free from the influence of the health crisis, they staged 154 million departures abroad, 3.3% more than the previous year. As for the level of spending, in 2018 the average per trip is around $1,852. Spain is no stranger to this scenario. The data collected by the INE show that in 2020, the average cost per Chinese tourist was around 2,669 euros, which is higher than German, Russian or Japanese.
Cover image: Oleg Afoin (Flickr)
