As I see it | It’s going to be a struggle to bring foreign tourists back to China
- The formal scrapping of Covid tests was the latest measure to lure international visitors, as there is little sign that numbers are rebounding so far
- Geopolitical tensions are also keeping high-spending Western visitors away
In July, for example, it was announced that international travellers would be able to link foreign credit cards to the widely used e-payment apps WeChat Pay and Alipay (the latter owned by the SCMP’s parent company).
The move was designed to partly address the concerns of foreigners who would struggle to make payments in a largely cashless society and where many businesses – especially smaller ones –will not take international credit cards.
Before the pandemic, tourism and its related industries played a significant part in China’s economy, contributing around 11 per cent of GDP in 2018 and 2019.
But in 2022, the country’s zero-Covid policies meant there were essentially no international travellers, while the government said the revenue generated by domestic tourism was just over a third of pre-pandemic levels.
Since China scrapped its zero Covid policy in January, domestic tourism has picked up quickly, prompting government think-tanks such as the China Tourism Academy to predict that domestic tourist trips this year are expected to rebound to more than 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels and generate a revenue of 5 trillion yuan (US$686 billion), or more than 80 per cent of the pre-Covid figure.