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Travel travails: China’s pent-up outbound tourism demand hit by visa, flight issues, Trip.com CEO says

  • Quicker visa issuances and increased flight capacity will help to put China’s outbound tourism back on track, Trip.com’s Jane Sun says
  • Countries like Germany are taking months to issue visas, while visa delays are also preventing thousands of tourists from visiting the US, she says

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Trip.com’s net profit rose 28 per cent to 4.3 billion yuan in the first quarter. Photo: Shutterstock
Daniel Renin Shanghai

Visa delays and insufficient flight capacity have held back a full recovery in China’s outbound travel after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the CEO of Trip.com Group, the country’s largest online travel agency.

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“There are two major hurdles for the recovery – the first is visa restriction, and the second is flight capacity,” Jane Sun said at a media briefing in Shanghai on Thursday. “I am hoping these two bottlenecks ease and we are able to bring more [Chinese] customers to different countries.”

The release of pent-up overseas travel demand is “creating a strong trajectory” for Trip.com, but the company remains cautiously optimistic because of the gloomy economic outlook, she added.

After Beijing lifted its stringent zero-Covid policy in the first quarter of 2023, millions of Chinese consumers resorted to “revenge spending”, sparking a frenzy on leisure and entertainment, boosting the revenues of hotels, airlines, tourist-attraction operators and restaurants across the mainland.
Trip.com CEO Jane Sun pictured in April 2019. Photo: AFP
Trip.com CEO Jane Sun pictured in April 2019. Photo: AFP

However, outbound tourism was muted. Only 87 million Chinese travelled abroad in 2023, compared with 155 million in 2019, according to data from the China Tourism Academy.

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A Chinese citizen planning to travel to Germany, for example, currently has to wait at least four months before being interviewed by visa officers, while visa delays are also preventing thousands of mainland tourists from visiting the US, Sun said.

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