Half a month away is New Year's Day 2024, and the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon is approaching. Recently, the entry and exit management policies have been continuously optimized, which has greatly facilitated the exchange of Chinese and foreign personnel, and outbound travel on New Year's Day and Spring Festival has heated up.
In addition to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore successively announcing visa-free policies for Chinese tourists, Sri Lanka has also recently announced a visa fee waiver that will last until the end of March next year. According to the reporter's analysis, most of the ten ASEAN countries have launched visa facilitation measures to varying degrees for Chinese citizens, such as visa-free, visa-on-arrival or electronic visa. Indonesia is also considering a visa-free entry policy for Chinese tourists, while Thailand has said it is considering a significant extension to 90 days from the current 30-day visa-free policy.
Yesterday, the Sri Lanka Tourism Board also held a roadshow in Hangzhou to promote the rich and colorful leisure tourism and MICE tourism resources in Hangzhou, with a view to driving the enthusiasm of tourists from all over East China to travel to Sri Lanka.
It is not difficult to see that Southeast Asian countries and other popular destinations for outbound tourism have entered a white-hot war for Chinese tourists.
The first year of the resumption of outbound travel
2023 is destined to be the beginning of the recovery of outbound travel.
From September to December, in just three months, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand successively announced the implementation of visa-free access to China. The scope of the "visa-free circle of friends" continues to expand, which also makes the entry and exit travel on New Year's Day this year good.
According to the report, as of December 15, the number of outbound travel bookings for the New Year's Day holiday on Ctrip's platform increased nearly 5 times year-on-year. Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Macau, Australia, the United States, Malaysia and the United Kingdom are among the top 10 most popular destinations for outbound travel.
Going to the Arctic Circle to meet the aurora has also become a new trend on New Year's Eve. According to the report, the number of orders to Finland and Sweden to see the aurora on New Year's Day increased by 73% and 10% respectively from the previous month.
The number of flights between Hangzhou and Bangkok, Singapore and Bali increased
Since the start of the 2023 winter and spring season, the number of flights from Hangzhou to international has been increasing.
On the morning of December 11, Loong Air flight GJ8021 took off from Hangzhou Airport with 173 passengers on its way to Bangkok, Thailand. This is another new Asian route that has been reopened after the Asian Games. So far, the number of flights from Hangzhou Airport to Bangkok, Thailand has reached 25 flights per week.
In addition to Bangkok, Thailand, the number of flights between Hangzhou and Singapore has also continued to increase: from only two flights per week on the Singapore route at the beginning of the year, to 14 flights per week now, and the load factor has also increased to more than 8%. There are also the Hangzhou-Jeju route that Capital Airlines resumed operating from yesterday, and the Hangzhou-Sapporo route that Hainan Airlines plans to resume from December 25.
According to statistics, since December, Hangzhou Airport has continued to play the Asian Games dividend, with the number of international and regional flights increasing from 54 flights per week at the beginning of the year to 220 flights per week, which is 4 times that of the previous one, of which the Asian routes have reached nearly 5 times that of the beginning of the year, and outbound travel is expected to further heat up.
In the face of the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, Mr. Zhou, general manager of Hangzhou Nuoda Air Services, a charter company, said: "The tourism trend during the summer vacation and National Day is still dominated by domestic travel. Entering December, it is obvious that the outbound tourism market during the Spring Festival is better than that of the summer vacation. According to him, now Hangzhou departs from Thailand, Bali, and Nha Trang has maintained a rhythm of three classes a week. Starting from January 20 next year, they plan to encrypt the frequency of flights to Bali, which will become four flights a week. And during the Spring Festival, it will be added to one shift per day.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Board made a special trip to Hangzhou for tourism promotion
Known as the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean", Sri Lanka has a history of nearly 3,000 years and is home to eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites, making it an ideal destination for visitors to bring together nature and people.
Xinhua News Agency data map
Just yesterday, the Sri Lanka Tourism Board went to Hangzhou to hold a promotion meeting with the latest tourism policies. The Consul General of Sri Lanka in Shanghai, Anuro Firando, said: "The 2024 New Year is just around the corner, and we are here to cheer for the Sri Lankan tourism to sell well in the Chinese New Year. ”
The first "gift" brought by this is the waiver of visa fees for Chinese tourists until March 31, 2024.
At present, an electronic visa is still required for the visa. The procedure is relatively convenient, as long as you submit your personal information and travel information, it will usually be issued within 72 hours, and after it is printed, you can bring it with you when you travel.
It is understood that before the epidemic, China was the second largest source of tourists in Sri Lanka, and the peak was in 2016, when the number of Chinese tourists reached more than 280,000. In the first 11 months of 2023, Sri Lanka received nearly 1.3 million global tourists, an increase of more than 103% compared to the same period in 2022. Among them, the number of Chinese tourists received was 60,515, nearly 15 times the figure of the same period in 2022.
"With SriLankan Airlines and other Chinese airlines, direct flights between China and Sri Lanka are now resuming. Chinthaka, Head of China Marketing at the Sri Lanka Tourism Board, believes that although there is still a big gap from the pre-pandemic peak for the same period, it will take time for outbound tourism to recover, and I believe this will be a good start.
There is no direct flight from Hangzhou to Sri Lanka yet, and tourists can go to Shanghai to take China Eastern Airlines or Sri Lankan Airlines to Colombo. The reporter inquired, taking the departure on December 29, 2023 and the return on January 3, 2024 as an example, the round-trip ticket price is about 5,000 yuan including tax. If you depart during the off-season in January next year, the price will be even cheaper.
During this year's Spring Festival holiday, do you have any plans to travel abroad?
Orange Persimmon Interactive City Express reporter Jiang Yue