China bookings to return to pre-pandemic level by early 2024 – Agoda

Overseas travel bookings from mainland China are currently at just over half of pre-pandemic levels but are on course to return to the 2019 numbers by the end of this year or early 2024, the head of online travel agency Agoda said on Thursday. China was the world’s largest outbound tourism market before the pandemic with annual spending of $255b. The country reopened earlier this year after removing most of its pandemic restrictions, giving a big boost to outbound travel. “China recovery is expediting, a little higher than half way versus 2019 levels,” Omri Morgenshtern told reporters on Thursday, adding that was “still some way off” the 2019 figures for the first five months. “They will close the gap by end of the year or early next year,” he said. A major beneficiary of that reopening was Thailand, one of Asia’s most popular travel spots. The top overseas destinations for Chinese tourists were Hong Kong, Bangkok and the Thai island of Phuket, Agoda data showed. The Bangkok-based company is a unit of online travel giant, Booking Holdings. Tourism is a crucial driver of Thailand’s economy and accounted for 12% of the economy before the pandemic. In 2019 the country recorded nearly 40m foreign tourists who spent 1.91t baht ($54.89b).<br/>