Why Chinese will continue to travel: COTRI forecasts a +7% increase in Chinese outbound trips for 2020 despite coronavirus

CHINA. China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) is projecting a +7% year-on-year increase in outbound trips from Mainland China – albeit based on the critical assumption that from April the travel restrictions for Chinese travellers will be rescinded. 

In that scenario, Cotri says, 2020 will see a total of 181 million trips from Mainland China.

In a key editorial leader in today’s edition of The Cotri Weekly, Founder & Director Professor Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt wrote: “The majority of international, especially intercontinental, travel of Chinese is done for non-leisure purposes, for business, MICE, VFR, studies, health etc. With the 2019 n-CoV scare over [when it is -Ed], most of these international trips which had to be postponed, will be taken. Moreover, different from ‘Western’ individual consumption patterns, the leisure-based purposes will also be made up for at a later time. We could see this pattern after SARS, Avian Flu and other periods of travel restrictions, and we will see this pattern again after the 2019 n-CoV hype has ended.”

According to Cotri Analytics, 2019 witnessed 170 million border-crossings from Mainland China, out of which 74.5 million went to Greater China (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) and 95.5 million travelled beyond. The fall from 27 million to 16 million arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong, unrelated to the virus, in the second half of 2019 was the most important factor in the lower-than-expected total number for China’s outbound trips in 2019.

Professor Arlt wrote: “Greater China will probably see only a small increase of +3%, given the loss of day-trips which will not be taken anymore as well as the continuing political problems resulting from the Hong Kong SAR unrest and the Taiwan election results in the second half of 2019. For trips beyond Greater China an increase of +9% can be forecasted for the whole year of 2020.”

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