Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung on Saturday says more than 700 mainland tour groups expected to arrive in the city in next few days.

The release of pent-up demand, with travellers and consumers opening their wallets for the long holiday, could help lift China’s economy out of the doldrums.

Wang not in custody but cannot exit mainland China, Financial Times reports.

Airlines in China and the US are preparing for an increase in their direct routings, but the likelihood of a rapid return to 2019 levels of service is vanishingly small.

China Railway said it had recorded a record single day’s sales, with 22.9 million tickets being bought in one day.

Trip.com Group, China’s largest online travel agency, does not expect a stalled national economy to halt its pursuit of annualised growth of up to 20 per cent over the next three to five years.

The eight-day National Day holiday season promises to deliver a windfall for China’s tourism industry. Pent-up demand could overwhelm capacity, allowing hotel operators to raise prices by as much as 10 times, some of them said.

Despite borders reopening, the Chinese travel sector is having trouble luring tourists back.

China’s top three state-owned airlines reported significantly narrower losses for the first half of 2023 as Beijing’s lifting of Covid-19 restrictions late last year unleashed pent-up demand for domestic travel.

The world’s second-largest economy had 1.08 billion internet users as of June, an 11.09 million increase from December last year, to put its online penetration rate at 76.4 per cent.

Applications by mainland Chinese travellers for short-term business trips to Taiwan, including for exhibitions and training sessions, will be accepted from Monday as part of a staggered reopening.

People in China have switched from buying big-ticket items like flats and cars to experiential consumption, Tongcheng Travel CFO Fan Lei told the Post.

Hilton plans to open more than 730 hotels in China in the next 10 years after opening 100 properties last year, as it bets on surging demand from the nation’s middle class, senior executive Clarence Tan says.

Foreigners visiting China are advised to download WeChat and Alipay for payments, Amap for maps, Baidu Translate for communication, Trip for hotel bookings – and don’t forget that VPN.

Some landmark spots in Taiwan are relatively quiet compared with when sites were packed with mainland Chinese tourists before the pandemic, forcing those who depend on tourism to adapt to new trends.

While most countries in Asia have now dropped Covid-19 entry requirements, as of August 2023, mainland China, Myanmar and Iran are holding out. Here are their respective rules.

Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport is the first in the Middle East and North Africa region to obtain the Welcome Chinese Certification amid growing ties between China and Saudi Arabia.

Beijing had hoped consumption could drive China’s economic recovery, but analysts question its sustainability despite more than 500 large-scale concerts and music festivals this year.

The Shanghai-based company’s large language model, Wendao, is expected to become an essential tool for its customers to obtain accurate travel data and deal recommendations.

Domestic passenger traffic in China has exceeded pre-coronavirus levels, but the recovery of international travel remains sluggish.

After three years cut off from China’s sprawling pool of cash-strapped travellers during the pandemic, tourism operators in countries such as Tanzania are moving fast to lure them back, but challenges remain.

China’s first home-grown large cruise liner undocked in Shanghai this week as Beijing eyes a shift to high-end manufacturing while also narrowing the tech gap with global rivals such as South Korea.