Trade war hurts tourism: Chinese flight bookings to US ‘down 42 per cent for National Day holidays’
Separate report cites 5 per cent decrease in Chinese tourists to the US this year, with August showing 8.4 per cent fall in a downturn mirroring trade tensions
Chinese tourism to the United States is set to fall in next week’s National Day holidays, with flight bookings down and analysts saying numbers for the year are slowing as political tensions accelerate.
There has been a dramatic 42 per cent decrease in flight bookings from China to the US in next week’s holidays – known as “golden week” – compared with last year’s holiday week, according to travel fare search engine Skyscanner. Last year’s holiday period was one day longer.
The first three quarters of 2018 have seen a 16.7 per cent drop in flight bookings from China to the US, its figures show.
It comes as the American tourism industry watches with bated breath for signs of an impact on Chinese tourists visiting the country from the escalating US-China trade war, and on the back of travel advice issued by the Chinese embassy in the summer warning of the dangers of travel in the US.
Chinese visitors to the US are a small group overall, but their spending power is outsized, ringing up US$34.8 billion in 2016 in retail, accommodation, travel and educational spending, according to US government data.