Chinese tourists are returning to Thailand for their first trips abroad since Beijing dropped its strict Covid-19 curbs and reopened its international borders.
With China celebrating the Lunar New Year, Asia’s tourist hotspots have been bracing for the return of Chinese tourists, who spent $255 billion a year globally before the pandemic.
Countries from Thailand to Japan had depended on China as their largest source of foreign visitors.
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Beijing in December abruptly dropped some of the toughest Covid-19 restrictions on Earth, which had battered the world’s second-biggest economy.
The Chinese return has been welcomed by businesses, despite some wariness about a huge spike in Covid infections in China after Beijing ended its zero-Covid-19 policy.
Chinese visitors accounted for nearly a third of Thailand’s 40 million foreign tourist arrivals in pre-pandemic 2019.
The Thai government is expecting at least five million Chinese tourist arrivals this year, with some 300,000 coming in the first quarter.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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