Skift Take
Sure, the world has missed Chinese tourists for far too long, but if you are a destination looking for that one elusive answer to what the new Chinese traveler will look like, we recommend you stop now.
For more than two decades, outbound travel from China was a major rising catalyst for global travel, an economic engine spurred by the emerging middle class in the country of 1.4 billion people. Chinese travel could be felt from Vancouver to Dubai to Singapore with destinations becoming reliant on the steady stream of easily spending tourists.
Accounting for almost one-fifth of global tourism spending, Chinese tourists spent $255 billion overseas and made 166 million overseas trips in 2019, according to the United Nations' World Tourism Organization.
Between 2009 and 2019, the number of outbound Chinese tourists rose 12.8 percent a year on an average, compared to the global average of 5.1 percent.
Nothing seemed it could be a threat to that vibrant trend. That is, until the pandemic.
For three years, this drive force was eliminated from the global stage as China enforced strict, zero-Covid policies that put the country into lockdown.
Photo Credit: The travel industry will have to figure out ways to serve a new Chinese traveler. Shutterstock / noina