As Chinese shoppers trickle back to tourist hotspots for Lunar New Year holidays, malls from Macau to Bangkok aim to lure them into stores with red lantern displays, special dances and discounts.
The overall number of international flights from China is just 12 percent of pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels due to slow capacity increases.
However, retailers in popular Asian destinations are desperate to take advantage of the return of a first wave of Chinese tourists as the country reopens borders after three years of COVID-19 curbs.
Photo: Reuters
That is because Chinese customers have been a much-missed mainstay of the world’s retail and travel industry: Their spending on travel grew to US$255 billion in 2019, and accounted for 33 percent of spending in the global luxury personal goods market, Bain & Co said.
“We’re definitely seeing an uptick in traffic across both the gaming and retail side of the business,” a Macau casino executive said. “It’s extremely uplifting after three very sad years, and has provided a morale boost to everyone within the resorts as well.”
Many resorts on the gaming hub’s Las Vegas-style strip have been sold out for the Lunar New Year period, hotel executives said.
The number of daily international flights from China topped 300 this week for the first time since May 2020, VariFlight data showed, reaching 310.
Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines Co (吉祥航空) reported that its flights to Thai resorts Chiang Mai and Phuket were 99 percent and 95 percent full respectively when it resumed regular operations this week.
Robust demand for destinations such as Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and Thailand has also boosted prospects for the battered travel industry, Ctrip.com (攜程網) booking data showed.
In Bangkok, upscale shopping mall Iconsiam is rolling out an “Eternal Prosperity” campaign for the Lunar New Year designed to drive up traffic by 10 percent to 15 percent, Iconsiam managing director Supoj Chaiwatsirikul said.
The campaign would include red lanterns, cash-back offers and a raffle for gold bars as well as a riverside rabbit dance, he said.
In Singapore, the upmarket mall at the Marina Bay Sands resort has put in place giant rabbit decorations.
Since last month, the mall’s outlet for Kering SA’s Gucci store has seen an influx of Chinese tourists, who are the second-biggest clients behind locals, a staff member said.
Destinations elsewhere show that the return of Chinese tourists remains at a very early stage. Fresh COVID-19 testing requirements for Chinese tourists in some locations could be a barrier, while some countries also require visas that take time to process.
La Rinascente, an upmarket Italian department store operator owned by Thailand’s Central Retail Corp, is not planning to decorate shop windows with a Lunar New Year theme, unlike pre-pandemic practice, because there are still only a small number of Chinese visitors, Rinascente chief financial officer Mariella Elia said.
Retailers in South Korea have also not seen a huge influx of Chinese tourists, citing the suspension of short-term visas for travelers between the countries.
“Duty-free stores are focusing on promotions for Korean travelers,” a Shilla Duty Free official said, adding that “when the situation improves and tourism further catches on, we’ll expand packages for foreign travelers.”
In Hong Kong, which has seen a big increase in Chinese visitors, retailers said that has yet to translate into a significant sales jump, with many people appearing to be coming to see family.
“Before the pandemic, about 60 percent of our daily customers were mainlanders, but ... now there are only some mainland tourists coming occasionally,” a Luk Fook Jewellery (六福珠寶) manager said.
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