In 2019, the number of outbound Chinese travellers reached nearly 155 million, and China became the top feeder market for several countries in Asia, including Japan, Korea, and Thailand.

While many countries worked on plans to bring back Chinese travellers after the pandemic, the recovery is slower than expected. In 2023, it is estimated that the number of outbound Chinese travellers will be about 87million.

Among all the destinations in Asia Pacific, Macau, Singapore, and Korea are the top three markets that saw a stronger return of Chinese travellers in 2024. The Maldives, notably, sees an 87% recovery in Chinese travellers compared to the figures in 2019.

To bring back Chinese travellers, the Maldives puts more efforts into Chinese-language marketing across social media platforms and schedules more direct flights from China.

Additionally, the Maldives and China entered into new bilateral agreements on various topics, including economic development and tourism. It is estimated that the number of Chinese travellers will rebound to the pre-pandemic level by the end of this year, reaching a 40% year-on-year increase. As of May 2024, China is ranked as the largest feeder market to the Maldives, surpassing Russia and India.

As of April 2024, Macau recorded about81% recovery of Chinese travellers of the pre-pandemic level, although it did not fully shut down its border with mainland China. Despite the return of the Chinese travellers, the spending per travellers recorded a 30% decline from last year. The decrease of spending is likely attributed to the slowdown of revenge travel as well as growing trends of ‘single day’ trips among Chinese travellers.

Boosted by the mutual visa exemption agreement between Singapore and China, Singapore welcomed over 1.2million Chinese travellers in the first five months of 2024, approximately 80%of the pre-pandemic level. It is expected that the number of Chinese travellers would exceed the pre-pandemic figures during the peak seasons in summer, as flights to major cities are resumed amid increasing demand.

In Hong Kong, trends of single daytrips and lower travel budgets also had an impact on the local tourism industry. As of May 2024, only 13.8 million tourists from mainland were recorded, approximately 59% of the figure in 2019.

To bring back the Chinese tourists, the Hong Kong government continuously launched new events and promotions targeting incoming tourists and worked on tackling the “poor quality” of budget tour groups from China amid complaints from residents.

Overall, the mass Chinese travellers are driven by the ease of access, cost and visa waivers. At the same time, the travel behaviour of Chinese travellers is changing, and domestic travel is getting popular in China after coming out from the pandemic.

However, the high-spending travellers are returning slowly to key markets, namely Maldives, Japan and Europe. In long term, destinations are looking to diversify the source market and accommodate the new travel behaviour of Chinese travellers.

AP Hospitality Advisors serves owners, investors, developers, operators and lenders of hospitality assets across Asia-Pacific. The team blends expertise in operations, real estate and finance to support any critical step in the asset life-cycle.

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