But there’s a caveat: destinations hoping to cash in again will need to take a fresh approach that speaks to the Chinese traveller who has spent three years away from the world.

“The Chinese outbound tourist will not be the same as they were before. You have to prepare and adapt for that,” says Wolfgang Georg Arlt, chief executive officer at Cotri. “We have changed. China has changed.”

There’s time to prepare. Chinese tourists aren’t expected to travel far in large numbers until the second half of the year. China’s sales ban on group tour packages, enacted in the pandemic’s early days, has yet to be lifted.

And prices are up – way up. Visa processing will be a bottleneck because foreign consulates reduced staff. Major airlines will also need time to resume flights.

“There may be pent-up demand that drives more flights, but the schedules into April and beyond are still quite speculative at this moment,” says Mike Arnot, a spokesman for Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

China state television reported that American and Chinese airlines have submitted applications to resume up to 700 flights per week from 34 countries.

Until then, here are five major adjustments that destinations and brands need to consider with regard to global tourism’s biggest market.

1. Serve diverse travellers

A mistake that will prove costly to destinations and businesses is to cling to the dated perception that all Chinese tourists are the same.

Sienna Parulis-Cook, director of communications at Dragon Trail International, describes China’s outbound travel market as being “very segmented”. The first wave of long-haul travellers in 2023 will be experienced independent travellers, including millennials, Gen Z and luxury visitors, she adds.

While some will visit neighbouring Asian countries because they’re easy to get to, as well as inexpensive and familiar, others will seek new destinations.

“The game is no longer to go where everybody goes but to discover and find new places that not so many Chinese have visited before,” Arlt says.

2. Let go of mass tourism

Directly related to increasing market segmentation will be a diminished role for mass tourism. It won’t disappear entirely, but large group-sightseeing tours will probably appeal only to Chinese from smaller cities who have never travelled in the past, Arlt says.

Residents from China’s largest cities won’t be impressed with the big tour approach – they will laugh at you, Arlt says.

“They’ve had three years’ time to dream about places and read up and talk to people – and look on Mafengwo or Qyer [two Chinese travel-planning sites] for ideas of where to go.”

The Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (aka Little Red Book) has increasingly been tied up with tourism trends for the younger market. The platform has 200 million active users with disposable income, mostly women between the ages of 18 and 35.

“It’s aspirational – a little bit like Instagram, but luxury,” Parulis-Cook says.

Live-streaming, while not new in China, has also emerged as a trend in tourism marketing, she adds, so showing what life is like in prospective places will prove useful.

Nearly two-thirds of Chinese travellers surveyed by Dragon Trail said their top two reasons to travel abroad were to experience local food and local life. For less-obvious destinations, this will present opportunity.

For example, Papua New Guinea is working with Cotri to attract Chinese travellers interested in niche local experiences. Arlt says his firm is also in talks with Canada to create a First Nations programme targeting the Chinese market.

“All this is moving towards special-interest tourism – smaller groups with a higher spending,” he adds.

3. Communicate on safety

After pricing, destination safety ranks as second in importance for Chinese travellers (63 per cent), according to Dragon Trail. That’s not surprising, given the wave of anti-Asian-hate attacks globally, including in the US, Canada, Italy, Brazil and New Zealand, since the pandemic.

The safety factor will be critical for the first wave of Chinese independent travellers before mass tours resume, which at least offer safety in numbers.

More than two-thirds of Chinese travellers ranked the US as the destination they consider least safe to visit as of December 2022, according to Dragon Trail. Other bottom-rankers in the survey: Israel, Peru, Chile, Britain and Spain.

“Chinese people are very sensitive if they are welcomed or not, because they see themselves not as Mr. Lee or Mrs. Wong but as Chinese – and what you do to them, you do to the Chinese,” Arlt says.

Tourism body Discover Los Angeles, for example, formed a community advisory board to represent various diverse groups during the pandemic, including Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI).

The AAPI volunteers visited a variety of stakeholders in the city to ensure that these businesses emphasise in their communications that diverse visitors can feel safe and welcome in LA.

Even a slight perception that Chinese travellers could be subjected to racial abuse in a place and treated badly because they are Chinese, Arlt says, will have consequences. Chinese visits to the US dropped by close to 11 per cent from 2017 to 2019 during the Trump administration, which was considered hostile to China.

Tourism boards know to lay out the welcome carpet, and hotel managers will have to be conscious about training frontline workers to receive Chinese travellers after such a long pause.

But the average resident’s attitude towards Chinese people will be more critical now, Arlt says. Tourism boards will have to do more marketing and education to improve general host perceptions, in addition to communicating that they are happy to have Chinese visitors back and to factor in ways to prevent incidents.

“This is really a chance to make a new first impression,” Parulis-Cook says. “Those first travellers’ experiences may have more influence on the travellers that come after them. So it’s an important moment.”

4. Offer value

Before the pandemic, bragging about big spending was considered impressive, Arlt says, but what’s deemed impressive now is spending on experiences and learning by having done something, not merely flashing wealth.

Value for money has become important to Chinese travellers, especially considering the increased costs of travel and the absence of discount tour packages.

Previously popular destinations such as Los Angeles are receiving a much greater percentage of families travelling with children, as well as a shift in demand from millennials and members of Gen Z, such as groups of friends planning independent travel.

“What they’re looking for is the authentic LA,” says Adam Burke, chief executive at the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, who adds that Chinese travellers look at what a local would do and seek to explore LA’s neighbourhoods in more detail.

Travellers from China have also shown a greater willingness to pay for greener choices than their European and American counterparts. Among Chinese respondents, 88 per cent say they care about their impact on destinations and communities when travelling, according to Dragon Trail’s survey.

The survey further reveals that for most Chinese travellers, sustainability could mean choosing a hotel with such environmentally friendly practices in place as water conservation and waste reduction, cycling instead of driving, supporting activities that help preserve disappearing local cultures, and choosing cruelty-free ways to see animals.

5. Reduce visitor visa hurdles

Covid testing is no issue for the Chinese, who are used to it. But simplifying the visa process – providing an e-visa, a visa on arrival or requiring none at all – would attract more Chinese travellers, with convenience ranking as the third most-important factor in the Dragon Trail survey.

That makes destinations such as the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey and Ecuador well positioned to receive Chinese visitors this year.

South Korea and Japan, destinations popular among Chinese travellers, are in a pickle for having imposed severe entry restrictions on Chinese travellers; China has retaliated with visitor visa bans.

“The visa wait times are going to be the single greatest impediment to the recovery of Chinese visitation to the US,” says Burke, who also sits on the US Travel Association’s board and was just named to the Department of Commerce’s US travel and tourism advisory board.

Despite the view that the US is least safe, America’s brand remains strong among Chinese travellers. Searches from China about visiting the US were among the highest in January, according to online travel agency Trip.com.

Still, as long as immigration and other entry impediments remain, Chinese travellers may choose to steer clear.

“One thing is the convenience,” Parulis-Cook says, “and one thing is the feeling of friendliness and welcome.”

South China Morning Post