Recently, more Chinese travelers have been going to countries where they can quickly get visas. As a result, Pattaya, a popular beach destination in Thailand, is witnessing a growing influx of Chinese tourists.
China’s State Council Information Office (SCIO) says that the number of travelers peaked during the Qingming Festival when the Chinese honoured their ancestors. Many Chinese people then went to places where they could easily get visas, or enter visa-free, like countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, VisaGuide.World reports.
According to the same, this increase has occurred due to some new rules that make it easier for Chinese tourists to travel abroad.
Wang Xiaomei, a tour guide from Sichuan China Youth Travel Service, took a group of over 20 people from Chengdu to Pattaya. With 15 years of experience, she’s been working non-stop since March.
The tourist numbers have been booming since March. We used to arrange two tours every month, six days each, from Chengdu to Thailand. Now, we’ve got five tours this month, and each of our tour guides has a very busy schedule.
Singapore-China Flight Traffic Returns to Pre-COVID Levels
Data from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) shows that flights between China and Singapore are back to the levels before COVID-19. Tickets booked for the Qingming Festival between China and Singapore are 50 percent higher compared to 2019, with a 15 percent price increase.
Fiona Ma, director of EU Holidays, also pointed out that Singapore will be a popular destination for short family trips for Chinese people during the May Day holiday. Even in Tanzania, where it takes 12 hours to fly from China, there have been more Chinese tourists. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Tanzania increased by 32.4 percent from 33,541 in 2019 to 44,438 in 2023.
As STB data reveals, when China and Singapore started allowing 30-day visa-free travel on February 9, China became the biggest source of visitors to Singapore that month, with almost 327,000 travelers, eight times more than the year before.
Similar to Singapore, Antigua, Barbuda, and Thailand also signed visa-free agreements with China this year. Now, 23 countries have visa-free agreements with China, allowing Chinese passport holders to stay for 30 days.
Visa-Free Travel Boosts Chinese Tourism
Zhang Bingbing from China’s Guangdong Province said that not having to pay for a visa on arrival saved her more than $55 and that getting into Thailand was easy. In the first three months of this year, Thailand welcomed 1.75 million visitors from China, making it the primary source of tourists to Thailand.
The STB has signed agreements with WeChat Pay and UnionPay to make it easier for Chinese visitors to pay and to encourage them to spend more. These efforts have paid off, with visitors from China spending $1.7 billion in Singapore last year.