Asia | China | Economics & Growth | Europe | Global | US
Tourist Numbers Sluggish Despite China Reopening
- By Bilal Hafeez and Ben Ford
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- 2 min read
We track scheduled flights (what’s planned) and tracked flights (what took off) from a sample of the largest airports across the world.
Looking at data up to 16 January 2023:
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- Global departures sit at 104,000 per day, a level comparable to 2019, but shy of the levels they were before Covid-19 struck in 2020 (Chart 1).
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We track scheduled flights (what’s planned) and tracked flights (what took off) from a sample of the largest airports across the world.
Looking at data up to 16 January 2023:
- Global departures sit at 104,000 per day, a level comparable to 2019, but shy of the levels they were before Covid-19 struck in 2020 (Chart 1).
- The return to 2019 levels is largely due to China reopening (Beijing: +26.3% WoW; Shanghai: 34.7% WoW). However, with restrictions easing, several countries require tougher Covid-19 measures on Chinese travellers. China retaliated – they halted short-term visas for South Korean and Japanese visitors.
- Despite departures returning to 2019 levels, tourist numbers have not. Only Greece and Italy have seen a normalisation (Chart A). Europe (-5.9% WoW) as a whole, however, has seen departures fall over Q4 (Chart 2). Meanwhile, Japan (27.0%), Hong Kong (5.2%) and Taiwan (9.4%) are laggards in this respect.
Information on long-term movements in flight data is available below.
US
UK
Italy
Spain
Germany
France
Canada
China
Japan
Hong Kong
South Korea
Singapore
Thailand