Chinese staying home curbs tourism growth

Low count: Restaurant workers with food menus along a street in the Chinatown area of Bangkok. The number of visitors to Thailand from China was down in the first half of the year, as was the case with the rest of South-East Asia. — AFP

SINGAPORE: South-East Asian nations that were counting on Chinese travellers to drive tourism revenues and their economies post-Covid are finding the flow of visitors far from the flood they were hoping for.

China’s slower-than-expected economic recovery has left its population more hesitant to spend money heading abroad. The result: the number of Chinese arrivals in five South-East Asian countries varied between 14% and 39% in May compared to the 2019 numbers, latest official data compiled by Bloomberg News showed.

The visitor statistics suggest that South-East Asia’s economic recovery this year will be muted, amid a dimming global growth outlook from tighter monetary policies and China’s faltering growth momentum.

Although Thailand, among the most tourism-reliant economies in the region, is benefitting from a rebound in post-pandemic travel demand, Chinese visitor arrivals are expected to miss the original official seven million target for 2023 by at least two million.

The nation’s gross domestic product forecast for this year was cut by Nomura Holdings Inc economists to 3.4% from the previously-seen 4% on lower-than-expected tourism spending.

Bali, one of the most popular holiday destinations that accounts for the bulk of Indonesia’s total foreign visitors, saw demand for luxury hotels drop in the January to May period amid a substantial decline in tourists from China, according to securities firm PT Bahana Sekuritas.

Even Singapore, which had credited the travel boom for ruling out a recession this year, has seen numbers disappoint. Chinese visitors during January to May totalled 310,901, compared to 1.55 million in the same period in 2019, according to data from the city-state’s tourism board.

South-East Asia isn’t alone in hosting fewer Chinese visitors.

Japan, too, is experiencing a lower turnout of Chinese travellers compared to pre-pandemic years.

Still, the Asian nation is seeing a new group of shoppers that are replacing the once-dominant mainland spenders.

Retail giant Takashimaya said recently that non-Chinese tourists accounted for almost 70% of its total sales between March to May from tourists, compared with just 20% during pre-pandemic days.

That trend is a cue for South-East Asian nations, including Malaysia, that went all out to woo Chinese travellers this year, to diversify their target markets and end their reliance on visitors from the world’s second-biggest economy.

Summer tour bookings by Chinese for South-East Asian destinations do not have significant improvements from the first half of the year, said Qiu, a Guangzhou-based employee of GZTC International Tour Company, who asked to use only one name citing rules against speaking to the media.

Even the most popular destinations, such as Singapore and Malaysia, only saw about 30% of the pre-pandemic demand during the summer holiday, while others including Thailand were at 10%, he said.

A slower increase in flight capacity has also been a drag on tourism recovery.

Flight capacity between China and the region is improving, but most routes are still well below pre-pandemic levels, with Singapore being the outlier, data from aviation analytics company Cirium showed.

Lack of tour groups also contributed to the slow pace of recovery, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Zhu. — Bloomberg