China’s Tourists to Spend Nearly $1 Trillion on Holidays at Home

Chinese tourists are making up for the lost holidays of the past few years, splashing cash on travel at home and abroad, putting spending on track to exceed pre-pandemic levels for the first time — an important benchmark in the industry’s recovery.

Chinese holidaymakers will spend 1.8 trillion yuan ($250 billion) this year on trips internationally — about 10% more than they did in 2019, according to data from the World Travel and Tourism Council, an industry group that conducts travel research. Chinese tourists embarking on adventures closer to home are also forecast to pump a record 6.79 trillion yuan into the mainland economy this year, also topping the pre-pandemic level, according to a council report conducted with Oxford Economics.

“Chinese visitors are starting to travel again and this is only going to continue to grow,” said travel council president Julia Simpson. “The tourism sector has shown signs of resilience and a strong recovery.”

Chinese holidaymakers are a driving force for the global tourism industry, with many countries keenly awaiting the return of travel and spending from the world’s biggest market of travelers. Chinese outspend tourists from all other countries, including Americans. In 2019, Chinese travelers made 170 million trips abroad and spent almost 1.7 trillion yuan overseas — making up 14% of global tourism spending, according to World Travel and Tourism Council data.

Even as global travel has recovered fully, a backlog in processing visas in countries such as the US, and more expensive international flights, have kept Chinese holiday makers closer to home, where they’re flocking to mainland cities for popular local delicacies such as spicy street foods and smaller towns in a “reverse travel” trend shunning crowds.

Spending by domestic holidaymakers is expected to be 11% higher than 2019 — before the Covid pandemic stopped most travel, according to the travel council.

Meanwhile, international visitors to China still haven’t rebounded. Spending by foreign tourists on the mainland this year is expected to hit 715 billion yuan, about a quarter less from 2019 levels. China was one of the last big economies to re-open its borders, and inbound flights to the country haven’t fully returned.

In recent months, China has loosened visa restrictions for visitors from Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, along with some European countries and cruise ship passengers, in a bid to boost both inbound tourism and investment. At the beginning of the year, Beijing said it had eased visa requirements for 11 countries since July 2023.

China reported 82 million tourist arrivals last year — about 56% of the 2019 level, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. The number of visits made by people from outside of Hong Kong and Macau was just 13.8 million, lagging pre-Covid figures by around 57%.

And even as the country’s economy has weakened and retail spending remained sluggish, travel is one of the stronger consumption categories, according to Morgan Stanley. The tourism and travel sector broadly supported 80 million tourism and travel jobs this year, about 2% below 2019, according to the report.