21st century business herald reporter Gao Jianghong reports from Beijing.
Affected by the continuous release of travel demand, macroeconomic improvement and favorable policies, the tourism market has ushered in a strong recovery.
On September 2nd, Dai Bin, president of china tourism academy, pointed out at the Tianjin 2023 Global Travel Agents Conference that the tourism economy in 2023 has entered a new channel of all-round recovery with "steady development, accelerated recovery, rising volume and price, and booming supply and demand". "Multiple, multidimensional and continuous data show that the tourism economy has irreversibly moved from depression to recovery." Dai Bin said.
According to china tourism academy’s calculation, the number of domestic tourists in the summer of 2023 (June-August) reached 1.839 billion, accounting for 28.1% of the number of domestic tourists in the whole year; Domestic tourism revenue reached 1.21 trillion yuan, accounting for 28.7% of the annual domestic tourism revenue. The performance of the summer tourism market has greatly boosted market confidence, but Dai Bin also reminded the market and the government to pay attention to the phenomenon that the effect of consumption promotion policies will decrease and the market growth rate will slow down after the short-term inhibitory demand is released in the future, as well as the possible structural problems and long-term risks.
The characteristics of concentrated travel on holidays are remarkable.
Since the beginning of this year, the strong demand side has promoted the recovery of the tourism market, and concentrated travel on holidays has become a prominent feature of domestic tourism, setting off wave after wave of tourism upsurge. Following the hottest May 1st and Dragon Boat Festival in the past five years, the domestic tourism market has ushered in the hottest summer vacation in the past five years. According to the data of China State Railway Group Co.,Ltd., during the summer vacation in 2023 (July 1-August 31), the national railways sent 830 million passengers, which was a record high. According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration, 130 million passengers were transported by civil aviation during the summer vacation, an increase of 7.4% over the same period of the summer vacation in 2019.
Specifically, parent-child travel, as a major force in summer tourism, returned strongly this summer. According to the 2023 Summer Travel Market Report, the order volume of parent-child travel tickets increased the most, increasing by more than 50% compared with 2019. Similarly, there is also a research tour, and the data shows that the number of applicants for research has tripled compared with last year. In addition, hotel vacations, sports performances, and immersion night trips have also become hot spots for summer vacation consumption.
Policy support and transportation capacity recovery enable the recovery of inbound and outbound tourism, especially outbound tourism. Up to now, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has released the list of outbound group tours and "air tickets+hotels" three times. The latest list released on August 10th includes 78 countries including Japan, South Korea, the United States, Britain and Australia, and the number of countries and regions where outbound group tours have resumed has increased to 138. At the same time, international flights are constantly recovering. According to the data of the Civil Aviation Administration, the passenger traffic on international routes in the first half of the year has recovered to 20% in 2019, and the international passenger traffic in June has recovered to 40% in the same period in 2019.
Therefore, this year’s outbound travel ushered in a significant rebound. According to the "Big Data Report on Outbound Tourism in the First Half of 2023" released by china tourism academy, outbound destinations received a total of 40.37 million mainland (mainland) tourists in the first half of the year; Among them, short-distance outbound travel took the lead in recovery, and more than 90% of tourists were concentrated in Asia. In the first half of the year, most of the popular areas for outbound travel were East Asia and Southeast Asia. Popular destinations included Hongkong, China, Macau, China and Taiwan Province, China, accounting for nearly 80% of outbound tourists. Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and other neighboring countries have also maintained a high degree of enthusiasm, and long-distance outbound travel in developed countries such as Europe and the United States has recovered rapidly.
During the summer vacation, the popularity of outbound travel continued. According to Ctrip data, as of August 23, the number of cross-border flights in summer has recovered by nearly 50% compared with the same period in 2019, and the outbound travel with the group in summer has increased by nearly 60% compared with the previous two months, among which the orders registered by parent-child families accounted for 52%, which was 46% higher than that of domestic parent-child orders.
Most analysts are optimistic about the future direction of tourism. China tourism academy is also optimistic about the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival, National Day holiday tourism and year-round tourism. Capital Securities also believes that with the accelerated resumption of international flights, the expansion of the destination of outbound travel teams, and the upcoming Mid-Autumn National Day holiday, the demand for outbound travel is expected to be further restored, and the popularity of domestic Zhou Bianyou and short-distance travel is expected to continue.
The overall recovery of inbound tourism is still weak.
Although the overall recovery of tourism is clear, the tourism industry still faces some problems and risks. Among them, there is still a gap between the recovery of inbound tourism and expectations.
Dai Bin pointed out that the epidemic has broken the online and offline market equilibrium, and the traditional offline tourism ecosystem, especially the inbound tourism services, has been greatly impacted and deeply affected.
Since the COVID-19 epidemic spread in the Spring Festival of 2020, China’s inbound tourism market has suffered a cliff-like decline. In that year, China received a total of 27.47 million inbound tourists, down 81% year-on-year. During the three years of the epidemic, inbound tourism was seriously affected. According to china tourism academy, from 2020 to 2023, the number of inbound tourists decreased by about 370 million, and the international tourism income was lost by about 362.06 billion US dollars, equivalent to RMB 2.41 trillion.
Since the beginning of this year, the number of inbound tourists in China has been slowly increasing, but the overall recovery of inbound tourism is still weak. According to industry insiders, the main limiting factors are the air transport capacity that is still recovering, the convenience of visas, and the biased reports of overseas media that affect tourists’ perception.
However, Sun Bo, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of Ctrip Group, has confidence and expectation for the development prospect of inbound tourism. He told the Global Travel Agents Conference that foreign tourists’ curiosity about China’s cities and scenery is booming, and with the continuous introduction of favorable visa policies and the continuous recovery of international flight capacity, inbound tourism will surely usher in a comprehensive recovery.
Dai Bin believes that tourism policy should shift from short-term market recovery to long-term high-quality development, and pay close attention to the transmission of macroeconomic fluctuations to the tourism sector. Dai Bin reminded all localities to combine the analysis of the quarterly economic situation in the fields of culture and tourism, judge the problems that may be revealed after the slowdown of market growth in advance, and formulate reserve policy plans to ensure the "reasonable growth in quantity and effective improvement in quality" of the tourism economy.
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