IT’S a little before 8.30am and tourists are gathering in the pedestrian tunnels beneath Bangkok’s Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Decked out in sunhats, shades and elephant pants, the tourists file behind guides holding colourful flags or soft toys. One guide runs through local Thai greetings, saying in Mandarin: “You can say sawasdeeka or sawasdeekrab.”
The 30 people gathered around him repeat the greeting eagerly. They mimic their guide by bowing slightly and bringing their palms together in a customary Thai wai.
They are among the first Chinese arriving in tour groups since Feb 6, when Beijing gave the green light for travel agencies to organise outbound package tours for its citizens.
Such groups were a key driver of global tourism before the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020.
In 2019, China was the world’s largest source of tourists, responsible for US$255bil worth of overseas spending, according to the World Tourism Organisation.
But the market shrivelled up when countries around the world began shutting their borders from early 2020 to curb the virus. Many countries began lifting border restrictions from late 2021.
But Chinese citizens found themselves hemmed in by their country’s “zero-Covid” policies, which were lifted only in December 2022.
Many of the tourists The Straits Times spoke to at the Grand Palace on Tuesday were visiting Thailand for the first time, having been cooped up for nearly three years.
Some said they had been itching to travel – to just about anywhere.
“I don’t know much about where we are going in Thailand. I’ll just follow the tour,” said a tourist from Hunan province who had joined a tour group with his wife.“We are just here to enjoy ourselves and see the world. It was very boring (in China) before this.”
Domestic and international travel by Chinese citizens is rising as Beijing drops its Covid-19 curbs.
Between Jan 8 and March 7, China logged 39.72 million exit and entry trips at its immigration checkpoints – more than double the figure from the same period in 2022.
South-East Asia, a major destination for Chinese tourists before the pandemic, remains a favourite.
On the online travel agency Trip.com portal, Thailand topped the Chinese-language search terms for destinations, followed by nearby countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The surge in interest followed the Feb 6 resumption of Chinese outbound group tours to 20 countries including Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Laos.
On March 15, China expanded the list to include 40 more destinations such as Vietnam and Brunei.
But the region has yet to see a spike in tour groups because it takes time to restart flight connections suspended during the pandemic.
According to the Philippines’ Department of Tourism, the country received 31,647 Chinese travellers between January and March 10 this year. In 2019, over 1.74 million Chinese visited the Philippines.
Regional governments, while optimistic about the revival of Chinese outbound tourism, have made largely modest projections for 2023.
According to global travel data provider OAG, China’s international airline capacity stood at just 2.1 million seats – or 2.9% of the country’s total airline capacity in March.
Although that figure has more than doubled from 2022, it is a far cry from the 8.3 million seats available in March 2019.
Travel experts expect the next wave of Chinese travellers to come around the Labour Day period in early May, after more Chinese citizens renew their passports.
Observers say the profile of Chinese travellers is changing, with more choosing independent travel instead of package tours. This was noticeable in Laos, where camper vans driven by Chinese tourists have been noticeable around the ancient town of Luang Prabang.
Over in Thailand, independent travellers, or those who come in smaller groups of up to eight people, have become more common.
The new travellers are also staying two or three days more than in the past, on average. But they still converge on popular destinations like Bangkok and Phuket.
Varut Kanchanapattana, a business development manager at New Way Travel, said Chinese travellers were also modelling their trips after content posted by social media influencers. — The Straits Times/ANN
