Chinese tourism in Sweden is decreasing for the first time in several years.
According to Visit Sweden, the break in trend is due to increased economic concerns in China and changing Chinese travel habits.
China's big travel holiday, the Chinese New Year, is here. About 400 million Chinese are expected to travel domestically during the holiday and around seven million will celebrate abroad. But growth in China in 2018 was the lowest in almost 30 years and more and more Chinese are choosing not to travel long-distance.
In total, Chinese tourism decreased by four percent in Sweden last year compared to 2017.
”"We found quite quickly through the office in China that the increasing economic unrest in the country is affecting when people travel further afield," says Michael Persson Gripkow, brand and strategic communications manager at Visit Sweden.
Another reason is that more Chinese people are choosing to organize their trip on their own instead of booking organized group tours through several Scandinavian countries. This has had major consequences in Värmland, for example, where tourism has decreased by a whopping 38 percent.
”"This is probably because travel to Norway has decreased, which affects counties like Värmland where people spend the night on the road," says Michael Persson Gripkow.
In the US, the number of tourists from China has decreased since the trade conflict between the countries escalated. Things have also heated up between Sweden and China this autumn after three Chinese tourists were evicted from a hostel in Stockholm. The conflict culminated when SVT's comedy program Svenska Nyheter covered the incident. China demanded an apology and the matter went all the way to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
”"For a period, criticism was directed at Sweden in China, and many comments were written in Visit Sweden's and other official Swedish social media feeds. These types of incidents tend to ebb and flow over time, and we no longer believe that it affects the curiosity to visit Sweden among the travelers we target," says Michael Persson Gripkow.
Source: TT
