Hitting the white sand beaches and eating mango sticky rice and seafood, Chinese tourists are returning to Thailand for their first trips abroad since China ended its strict COVID-19 curbs and reopened its borders.
“Because of the pandemic, we hadn’t been out of China for three years,” said tourist and business owner Kiki Hu, 28, in Krabi on Thailand’s southwest coast. “Now that we can leave and come here for holiday. I feel so happy and emotional.”
With China celebrating the Lunar New Year, Asia’s tourist hotspots have been bracing for the return of Chinese tourists, who spent US$255 billion a year globally before the pandemic. Countries from Thailand to Japan had depended on China as their largest source of foreign visitors.
Photo: AP
Beijing last month abruptly dropped some of the toughest COVID-19 restrictions in the world, which had battered the world’s second-biggest economy.
Business owner Yoyo Chen, 32, from Yiwu in central China, said that returning to Thailand felt like coming home.
“I’m here to eat seafood. Previously, when I was here, I ate mango sticky rice, which was delicious. Back in China I kept thinking about the mango sticky rice here. I’m looking forward to the food, as well as visiting the beaches,” Chen said.
Photo: Reuters
“Getting visas is very convenient now. The tourism industry is more developed here, there are lots of fun activities and cuisine, and the Thai people are very hospitable,” she said.
The Chinese return was welcomed by businesses, despite some wariness about a huge spike in COVID-19 infections in China after Beijing ended its “zero COVID” policy.
“We’re glad that China finally allows their people to travel. At the moment, we’ve received some bookings through March,” said Woranuch Maungtong, 44, manager of Tip-Top Destination on Phuket, which provides daily speed boats to nearby islands.
Chinese visitors accounted for nearly one-third of third of Thailand’s 40 million foreign tourist arrivals in pre-pandemic 2019.
The Thai government is expecting at least 5 million Chinese tourist arrivals this year, with about 300,000 coming in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, a direct flight from China yesterday landed in Bali, Indonesia, for the first time in nearly three years after the route was suspended due to the pandemic.
At least 210 people were on board the chartered plane operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air from Shenzhen in China’s southern Guangdong Province.
“I feel very happy and relaxed. It was a long time we did not go abroad,” said An Pei, a Chinese tourist who was on the flight.
The Shenzhen-to-Bali route will operate once a week during its initial phase, a statement from Lion Air spokesperson Danang Mandala Prihantoro said.
Indonesia is targeting 255,000 tourists from China this year. It recorded 94,924 visits from China from January to October last year. More than 2 million tourists from China visited Indonesia each year before the pandemic.
The return of Chinese tourists is expected to support the overall target of foreign tourist arrivals this year. Indonesia aims to record 3.5 million to 7.4 million foreign visits, Indonesian Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno said in a statement on Friday. China is one of the largest markets for inbound tourism in Indonesia.
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