China lifts Covid lockdown and gives green light for group travel to around 80 countries, including Sweden. This is good news for the tourism industry, according to the state-run Visit Sweden.
“It is extremely positive,” says CEO Susanne Andersson.
The Chinese group travel ban was introduced in early 2020 as part of the country's handling of the corona pandemic.
Earlier this year, China opened up group travel to around 60 countries, and now Beijing is giving the green light to even more. According to a statement from the country's Ministry of Tourism and Culture, these include the US, UK, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and EU countries such as Sweden.
The fact that Chinese people can now once again travel here in groups is of great importance, according to Visit Sweden, which has China as a so-called focus market.
Before the pandemic, in 2019, Chinese accounted for around 403,000 of a total of 17.5 million foreign guest nights in Sweden.
In the past year, when Chinese people have had fewer opportunities to travel, there have only been around 30,000 guest nights.
– This shows that our Chinese customers like to travel in groups. Now we have the opportunity to return to the number of guest nights we had before, says Susanne Andersson.
She describes the Chinese tourist as someone who spends a lot of money on shopping and food, and who stays for a long time. Big cities and Lapland are popular.
– It's quite a lot of money at stake for the Swedish tourism industry.
Susanne Andersson sees China's decision as an encouraging signal to the country's citizens after the harsh Covid measures.
– The Chinese state wants people to go out and travel again, she says.
TT: Is it expected that China will open up to this now?
– I thought it would take a little longer, but I'm very happy. It gives us the opportunity to prepare for next season. It takes a while for infrastructure to get going. You also have to be able to get here.
To get the Chinese here, flights are required. For example, Denmark, which has been available for Chinese group travel for longer than Sweden, has an advantage.
TT: What about flight options?
– It has started to get going a bit. But this gives airlines that haven't flown in a while the opportunity to fly again. We have to constantly guard the Arlanda hub, versus the Oslo–Copenhagen hub. When flights to Denmark opened earlier, it strengthened their hub for intercontinental flights, says Susanne Andersson.
At the same time, the global situation creates uncertainty. For example, Finland's Finnair, with a large market in Asia, can no longer fly over Russia.
– The cloud of concern in this joyful event is accessibility
Source:TT-SVD.SE
