With the adjustment of entry and exit policies, the tourism industry is expected to speed up the recovery
Industry insiders said that due to insufficient supply and short-term air ticket prices are still high, it will take time for the total travel demand to recover
Our reporter Yang Zhaokui
On the evening of December 26, the National Health and Medical Commission issued a notice on the implementation of the "Class B and B Control" overall plan for the new coronavirus infection. From January 8, 2023, the nucleic acid testing and centralized isolation of all employees after entry will be cancelled, and require According to the international epidemic situation and various service guarantee capabilities, the outbound travel of Chinese citizens will be resumed in an orderly manner.
Today, the National Immigration Administration also issued an announcement, starting from January 8, 2023, to optimize immigration management policies and measures, including orderly resuming the acceptance and approval of ordinary passports for Chinese citizens traveling abroad and visiting friends, and resuming the processing of mainland residents for travel and business. Hong Kong visa, etc.
Today, the reporter integrated data from many online travel platforms such as Mafengwo, Tongcheng, Fliggy, Tuniu, and Qunar, and found that the adjustment of entry-exit policies has brought great benefits to the tourism market, and the tourism industry is expected to accelerate its recovery.
The instantaneous search volume of international air tickets on multiple platforms skyrocketed
Data from Mafengwo shows that after the announcement of the policy adjustment, searches related to “outbound travel” on the platform soared by 460%.
Among them, "visa", "passport" and "strategy" are the three most searched keywords by tourists intending to go abroad. Bangkok, Tokyo, Chiang Mai, Singapore, and Osaka are among the top five overseas destinations with the highest increase in instantaneous visit popularity.
"The continuous relaxation of policies has put the desire for outbound travel that has been suppressed for three years on the agenda. It is expected that the Spring Festival holiday will become the first important turning point in the outbound travel market in three years." Feng Rao, director of the Mafengwo Tourism Research Institute, said in an analysis.
According to the data of the Tongcheng platform, after the announcement of the policy adjustment, the instantaneous search volume of international air tickets on the platform increased by 850%; the instantaneous search volume of visas increased by 10 times.
The top three overseas destinations that Chinese tourists pay most attention to are Japan, South Korea, and Thailand.
The most searched destinations for outbound flights are mainly Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Los Angeles and Singapore.
The main search users for outbound travel are from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
According to Qunar data, the number of international air ticket bookings on the platform increased by five times within one hour after the news of the policy adjustment was released.
According to Fliggy data, less than an hour after the policy was released, the number of searches for international flights on the Fliggy platform increased by more than 8 times, and the search volume for inbound flights reached the peak in the past three years.
According to Tuniu data, the popularity of outbound travel and other related searches on the platform has soared.
Among them, overseas destination countries such as Japan, the United States, Thailand, South Korea, and Maldives, as well as overseas destination cities such as Phuket, Tokyo, Pattaya, Bali, and New York, ranked higher in search popularity.
It is reported that some platforms have already prepared for the recovery of the outbound travel market.
Mafengwo strategy brand Polaris strategy has prepared "official strategy" for overseas destinations, covering visas, transportation, accommodation, food, must-check experience and other information tourists need, to ensure that tourists can get new, accurate, Complete strategy information and authentic novel gameplay.
It will take time for the total travel demand to recover
"With the optimization and adjustment of the entry-exit epidemic policy, everyone's expectations for inbound and outbound travel will be quickly transformed into actions, and the bookings for international flights will start quickly, especially inbound flights will be the first to break out. At the same time, I believe that supply The airline will also respond and adjust quickly, and airlines will step up their efforts to resume popular routes and add routes to emerging destinations after the epidemic, until the supply and demand sides return to a balance again.” Xiang Min, head of Fliggy’s air ticket business, said.
However, Guo Lechun, deputy director of Qunar Big Data Research Institute, told reporters that the adjustment of entry and exit policies will help promote the orderly recovery of international flights, but limited by the approval of international flight arrangements, the supply of flights will not increase significantly in the short term.
At present, the number of planned flights is only 400, and even if all flights are carried out, it will only be 10% of that in 2019.
In addition, visas are still a major factor restricting travel, and many passengers have expired passports, and visa processing will take time.
The reporter noticed that a number of platforms have updated the status of visa-free visa-on-arrival countries and regions overnight to provide convenience for passengers to arrange travel plans.
Guo Lechun believes that the optimization of entry and exit policies has made passenger travel no longer restricted, but due to insufficient supply and short-term air ticket prices are still high, it will take time for the total travel demand to recover.
It is expected that after the flight season changes at the end of March next year, the flight volume will recover significantly, and the air ticket price will gradually fall back to a reasonable range.
With the implementation of the policy and the restoration of the operating capacity of the airline company, the summer of 2023 may usher in the peak of inbound and outbound tourism.
(Worker's Daily, Beijing, December 27th)