As China Lifts Pandemic Border Controls, Mixed Feelings at Home and Abroad

Thailand is anticipating around 300,000 Chinese visitors in the first three months of 2023, said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the country’s Tourism Authority. “There are only 15 flights per week compared to before Covid, where there are around 400 flights per week,” he said. Before the pandemic, nearly a million Chinese tourists visited every month.

At the Maetaeng Elephant Park in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai, employees said they were excited to see Chinese tourists return. For now, though, they are busy with South Koreans, who have largely replaced the Chinese as their biggest clientele.

“It is all still wait and see,” said Thipsuda Poungmalee, a sales and marketing manager at the park.

In Osaka, Japan, where Chinese tourists would sometimes make the news for what the Japanese call “bakugai” — or explosive buying — the optimism is also muted. “Of course, it has been much quieter without tourists from China, the city has been less lively,” said Makoto Tsuda, an official with the Osaka Prefecture’s Tourism Promotion office. Before the pandemic, nearly half of all foreign visitors to the city came from China, he said.

Japan is requiring visitors from China to provide a negative P.C.R. test before arriving and to take another test when they arrive. Mr. Tsuda said he expects to see more visitors from China, but perhaps not right away.

“I do think there is an additional hurdle compared with visitors from other countries, so it may not be a sudden burst of incoming tourists from China, but more gradual,” Mr. Tsuda said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/world/asia/china-covid-border.html