China’s travel recovery picks up pace with Golden Week holiday

MAINLAND Chinese have stepped up their travel bookings in preparation for the upcoming Golden Week holiday, with data showing a recovery to a level above that recorded for the Labour Day holiday period.

Outbound bookings for international travel between Sep 23 and Oct 8 were at 61 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, data from ForwardKeys as at Sep 15 revealed.

In March, The Business Times reported that outbound air ticket bookings made by the Chinese for the Labour Day holidays stood at only 22 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

China has three peak travelling periods: the week-long Chinese New Year holiday, usually in the first quarter of the year; the five-day Labour Day holiday in May; and the week-long National Day holiday, also known as Golden Week.

This year’s Golden Week holiday is from Sep 29 to Oct 8, and includes the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Evergreen destination Japan topped the international air ticket bookings chart for Golden Week, followed by neighbouring South Korea, South-east Asian tourist haven Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Singapore came in sixth in the tally.

If Hong Kong and Taiwan were included, Hong Kong places third – pushing Thailand and the UK down a spot, and bumping the US out of the top five. Taiwan would be sixth, replacing Singapore.

Bookings to Hong Kong are 52 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels. But bookings for Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the UK, the US, Taiwan and Singapore are underperforming – ranging from 32 per cent to 94 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Bookings to Macau and Malaysia are also above 2019 levels, thanks to easier access, incentives and promotions, said ForwardKeys’ Asia-Pacific vice-president of sales Kee Bing Han.

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The global air travel analytics company obtains its data from major online travel agencies and airlines.

Tourism Malaysia is stepping up its game in China by intensifying marketing efforts; the South-east Asian country recently launched tourism roadshows in several major Chinese cities to attract visitors, said Kee.

Neighbouring Thailand is pulling out all the stops to woo Chinese visitors. A fortnight ago, the kingdom unveiled a visa-free scheme for Chinese travellers from Sep 25, 2023 to Feb 29, 2024. It is the only South-east Asian country that has dropped visa requirements for travellers from China.

The government expects international arrivals to hit 28 million this year, out of which five million are from China; the visa waiver programme is expected to add 700,000 new arrivals.

Singapore and Indonesia are also experiencing a strong recovery, supported by enhanced flight capacity, Kee said.

Countries in the region, including Singapore, might be beneficiaries of the positive spillover effect from Thailand’s visa-free policy, DBS Group Research wrote in a recent report.

“Historical correlation among tourist arrival figures from different countries has been consistently positive, indicating synchronised travel patterns across nations and strong intra-regional travel behaviour among Chinese travellers.

“This is reinforced by a popular travel itinerary that spans Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, with a notably higher pair correlation observed among them,” DBS analysts said.

Mainland Chinese visitor arrivals in Singapore hit 258,600 in October 2019, Singapore Tourism Board data showed. Singapore recorded 3.6 million visitor arrivals from mainland China that year, making the North Asian nation the top source market for the city-state.

These tourists spent over S$4.1 billion. This sum excludes spending on sightseeing, entertainment and gaming, the figures for which are not available due to commercial sensitivity.

Jesper Palmqvist, senior director for the Asia-Pacific at hospitality research specialist STR, said: “Recovery is underway in China’s outbound markets, but a full recovery with similar traveller volumes and spending levels remains uncertain.”

He said that travel restrictions (some of which have only recently been removed), lower flight capacity, a slowdown in the Chinese economy, changing travel preferences, and a lack of passports are some factors limiting the Chinese outbound travel recovery.

On the supply side, the international flight capacity out of mainland China in Golden Week this year is still some way from pre-pandemic levels, at about 58 per cent, said Mabel Kwan, managing director of Alton Aviation Consultancy.

During this year’s Golden Week holiday, international outbound capacity from China is 7,769 flights. The corresponding period pre-pandemic had 13,432 flights.

The top four destinations by flight capacity this year are South Korea, Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong – unchanged from before the pandemic. Singapore, however, replaced Taiwan as the destination with the fifth highest number of flights, with 437 flights out of mainland China during the Golden Week this year.

Kwan noted that the number of flights from mainland China to Singapore had in fact fallen by 20 per cent from 547. Nevertheless, that decline was smaller than the approximately 50 per cent cuts in capacity to Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Singapore’s share of total flight capacity out of China has also risen to 6 per cent this year from 4 per cent pre-pandemic.

International flight capacity into Singapore during Golden Week 2023 has recovered to about 89 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, based on data from aviation analytics provider Cirium extracted by Alton.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its budget carrier Scoot have 205 flights from mainland China to Singapore during the Golden Week, which is 30 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.

The market share of the SIA group by flight capacity has fallen slightly to 47 per cent, from 54 per cent pre-pandemic, added Kwan.