Overseas Travel Bookings to Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels by 2024

OVERSEAS travel bookings from the Chinese mainland are currently at just over half of pre-pandemic levels but are on course to return to the 2019 numbers by the end of this year or early 2024, the head of online travel agency Agoda said.

China was the world’s largest outbound tourism market before the pandemic with annual spending of US$255 billion. The country reopened earlier this year after removing most of its pandemic restrictions, giving a big boost to outbound travel.

“China recovery is expediting, a little higher than half way versus 2019 levels,” Omri Morgenshtern said, adding that was “still some way off” the 2019 figures for the first five months.

“They will close the gap by end of the year or early next year,” he said.

A major beneficiary of that reopening was Thailand, one of Asia’s most popular travel spots. The top overseas destinations for Chinese mainland tourists were Hong Kong, Bangkok and the Thai island of Phuket, Agoda data showed.

The Bangkok-based company is a unit of online travel giant, Booking Holdings.

Tourism is a crucial driver of Thailand’s economy and accounted for 12% of the economy before the pandemic. In 2019 the country recorded nearly 40 million foreign tourists who spent 1.91 trillion baht (US$54.89 billion).

Of that, China was the biggest source market with 11 million arrivals. (SD-Agencies)

ARTICLE FROM: Shenzhen Daily