Chinese outbound travel recovery lags due to costs, visa snags

A recovery in Chinese overseas travel from the COVID-19 pandemic is fading as rising costs and difficulties in securing visas cement a preference for local and short-haul destinations. The delay in a revival to pre-COVID levels by China's outbound travellers, the world's top spenders on international tourism and airlines, is hitting travel-related companies, hotels and retailers globally. Eighteen months after China dropped strict zero-COVID policies and reopened its borders, the recovery in overseas travel is lagging behind market expectations and the shape of Chinese travel is changing, with a surge in domestic trips. Pressured by a prolonged property crisis, high unemployment and a gloomy outlook in the world's second-biggest economy, Chinese consumers have become more frugal since the pandemic, prompting discount wars on everything from travel to cars, coffee and clothes. Chinese people took 87m trips abroad last year, down 40% from pre-COVID 2019, and industry observers say the pace has slowed since the Lunar New Year in February. China's travellers spent 24% less last year than in 2019, while U.S. travellers' spending was up 14%, according to U.N. Tourism data.The Chinese lag is bad news for countries like France, Australia and the U.S., which were among the top destinations for Chinese travellers before the pandemic.<br/>