Chinese are moving and so is COTRI weekly Editorial

Dear Reader,

The Chinese outbound market is gaining speed. Singapore not only welcomed in July 2023 more than double the number of Chinese visitors compared to one month before, the 231,330 arrivals also represented 60% of the 2019 level and, more importantly, stayed on average four nights instead of three nights.

The arrival numbers for Macau SAR and Hong Kong SAR in July 2023 even reached more than 70% of the respective level of July 2019.

Other destinations are however not doing so well. Thailand had hoped for at least five million Chinese arrivals, but registered only 1.8 million for the period January to July 2023, compared to 6.6 million in the same period in 2019.

To boost arrival numbers, the Thai government will introduce a temporary visa exemption policy for Chinese tourists for the last quarter of the year.

The number of searches for outbound travel information on trip.com and other portals jumped up in a big way since the publication of the third list of destinations open for group travel offers (group travel meaning often no more than an air ticket and some cancellable hotel reservations). The slow processing of visa applications in many destinations is masking the real growth of demand for outbound trips.

As always, all good wishes from Prof. Dr. Arlt and the whole COTRI Intelligence team!