Chinese tourists are traveling again - but not the way they used to
Chinese tourists are raring to travel again. But this time, the usual suspects — Venice, Paris and Madrid, for example — aren’t their top picks. As China’s reopening gains momentum after three years of Covid-19 restrictions, the country’s travel-hungry citizens are emerging much changed, according to the Chinese Outbound Tourism Research Institute, an independent consulting company based in Germany.
“The Chinese tourists we will welcome this year and in the coming years are very different from those who came before,” Wolfgang Georg Arlt, founder and chief executive of COTRI, said at ITB Berlin, the world’s largest tourism trade fair.
In China as elsewhere, years of pandemic-induced lockdowns sparked a shift away from major tourist attractions toward “more nature-orientated, more outdoor-orientated tourism,” Arlt said. He highlighted the emergence of trends like camping and glamping, as well as family-focused trips.
Perhaps more significantly, many Chinese holidaymakers are still exploring the treasure trove of travel opportunities in their own country, he said.
