From one day to the next, China is lifting quarantine requirements for travel.

The announcement is as unexpected as it is pleasing for the Swedish tourism industry, which is hoping for Chinese tourists with fat wallets.

On January 8, travel restrictions in China will be significantly eased. Not having to spend two weeks in quarantine when you return home has caused Chinese people to rush to travel sites, and searches on the travel platform Tongcheng have increased by several hundred percent.

Susanne Andersson, CEO of Visit Sweden, which markets Sweden as a travel destination, did not believe in such a quick reopening.

– It was very unexpected. The most positive thing we heard was that it could possibly be reduced to fewer quarantine days on January 7, but then everything disappeared and it was really nice, she says.

It has been about three years since the coronavirus outbreak, which prompted China to impose the toughest possible restrictions. The Chinese government has stuck to the so-called zero-COVID strategy until recently, when it made something of a U-turn in its view of the virus.

– The ones that will get going the fastest are of course business travelers, who have started a little, slowly but surely, and especially the younger travelers who are a little less afraid of the disease, says Andersson.

Chinese tourists are the largest tourist group in the world. In Sweden, Chinese accounted for over 400,000 overnight stays in the year before the pandemic, second only to the Nordic neighbors, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. They are particularly important for the big cities.

Visit Sweden previously estimated that it would take until 2026 before Chinese tourism in Sweden was at the same levels again. But with the eased restrictions, things are now likely to go faster, Susanne Andersson estimates.

– Those analyses were based on the restrictions remaining in place into the second half of 2023. At the same time, we have just over a billion people who have not been outside their country in three years and who probably have a fairly large interest in traveling. But we will have to wait a while to see what the effects will be.

This is especially welcome in times of impending recession. When Swedes are holding on to their wallets more tightly than usual, foreign tourism will be literally vital to the tourism industry, Andersson believes.

– They (the industry) don't really have the muscle after the pandemic to handle that kind of decline, and then we risk jobs. A lot of jobs. That's why it's really important that the tourists that we can get back come back as quickly as possible, and that's why this was gratifying, she says.

– Our international guests also spend more than we Swedes do.

The easing of restrictions from China is also good news for the airline SAS. The company's market in Asia has been virtually closed due to first Covid restrictions and then the war in Ukraine, which halted flights over Russia.

– Of course it is positive. There are now very few restrictions left in the world and it is positive news for the travel industry in general, says Alexandra Lindgren Kaoukji, press manager at SAS.

Earlier in December, SAS increased flights to Shanghai from Copenhagen from once to twice a week. Whether the relaxed regulations in China will open up more routes eastward is too early to say, according to Alexandra Lindgren Kaoukji.

– Our desire is to fly just like we did before. There is a high demand for the destinations and they are important labor markets for us, both in terms of passengers and freight, so it is something that we are constantly evaluating.

Source:TT-SvD.SE