Will tourists finally return to Southeast Asia in 2023? Bali and Thailand may have reopened borders, but post-pandemic tourism in Asean could be a bumpy flight without Chinese travellers’ big bucks
- Phuket, Bali, here we come? Travellers are slowly returning to key Southeast Asian destination as restrictions are eased out – but the industry is still far behind pre-pandemic levels
- Bringing visitors back will be a key focus at the four-day Asean Summit starting November 10 in Cambodia, with the region pinning recovery hopes on a crucial EU aviation deal
Before Covid-19 all but shut down tourism in 2020, Asean’s 10 members were expecting 123 million visitors for the year, and projecting that number to grow rapidly in subsequent years.
In the end, just 26.1 million travellers showed up over those 12 months, according to World Tourism Organization estimates, and things went down further from there.
While there are the first signs of a recovery now, it will take time, and the lack of tourists continues to hurt revenues throughout the bloc.
The push to bring tourists back will be a key focus of talks during the coming four-day Asean Summit, a meeting of the region’s most senior policymaking body, starting November 10 in Cambodia.
For Asean, the race is now on to attract 152 million tourists by 2025 and 187 million by 2030, putting it back on track to meet the pre-pandemic forecasts in its “Asean Tourism Strategic Plan 2016-2025”.
“The pandemic has only highlighted to what extent Asean and China’s tourism industries are coupled together,” said Hannah Pearson, Malaysia-based director at Pear Anderson, a travel market research organisation focused on the Asean region. She added that Asia-Pacific tourism will continue to be held back until China reopens outbound travel.
As part of its zero-Covid policy, Beijing introduced travel restrictions that have made it very difficult to travel abroad for leisure. Domestic tourism in mainland China has held up well but not foreign travel among Chinese tourists. The eventual return of Chinese tourists is what Southeast Asian destinations are holding out for.
“Chinese travellers returning to international travel will undoubtedly boost the tourism industry in Asean. After all, China accounted for 22 per cent of total arrivals into Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in 2019,” said Pearson.
Charles Chia, CEO at Hong Kong-Asean Foundation Limited, said: “Tourism and airport figures from countries in the region closely correlate with the relaxation of border, quarantine and Covid-19 control measures adopted by those respective countries.”
