Why travel demand to go to China is low, but interest in Japan is high

With a plum position atop many “Best Places to Travel” lists, Japan is on target to welcome a record-breaking variety of travelers in 2024.

But China faces a special reality: a far slower return of international visitors.

Each countries dropped Covid-related border restrictions relatively late — Japan in October 2022, and China in January 2023 — but their post-pandemic recovery trajectories have diverged ever since.   

Demand to go to China is on the rise, in keeping with its National Immigration Administration, which announced a 130% year-on-year increase in foreign visitors from January to July.

Summer trips are up too, with inbound bookings doubling since last summer, a representative from the travel website Trip.com told CNBC Travel.

Nonetheless, arrivals are still far below pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, China welcomed some 49.1 million travelers — as of July this 12 months, around 17.25 million foreigners had arrived, in keeping with Chinese state media.

Japan, for its part, can also be struggling — but under the load of its own popularity.

Greater than 3 million international travelers have visited every month since March — well above 2019 levels.

Beyond the cultural fascination with Japan, the country’s current “it” status is partially the product of initiatives put in place by the Japanese government, said Joydeep Chakraborty, chief strategy and investment officer on the Southeast Asian travel app Traveloka.

“The federal government has long been focused on making Japan a top travel destination through pro-tourism efforts, comparable to enhancing traveler experiences and simplifying the travel process for international visitors,” he said.

These efforts were then accelerated by the depreciation of the yen, he said.

“The USD/JPY exchange rate [moved] from roughly 140 in January 2024 to over 160 by July 2024, making Japan more cost-effective,” said Chakraborty.

Now “overtourism” in Japan is making headlines again, as crowds pack Kyoto’s famed temples and jockey for space during peak cherry blossom season.

The country’s labor market — one in all the tightest within the advanced world before the pandemic hit — is straining to maintain up. This 12 months, 85% of travel and hospitality operators limited operating hours due to labor shortages, in keeping with the Japan Federation of Service & Tourism Industries Staff’ Unions.

“The Chinese government’s tightening grip on societal regulations could potentially cause discomfort for foreign travellers in China,” states an article on its website titled “Visa-free policies alone won’t revive China’s inbound tourism.”  

China’s expansion of its visa-free policies is spurring demand to go to. Some 58% of arriving travelers in the primary half of 2024 got here countries with such arrangements, in keeping with its National Immigration Administration.

But a Pew Research Center report shows that, amongst 35 surveyed countries, greater than half have unfavorable views of China. Based on the July report, a number of the world’s biggest travel spenders — comparable to those from america, Germany, the UK and France — maintain largely negative views of China.

China’s favorability views within the report are highest in sub-Saharan Africa in addition to Asia, though opinions are mixed within the latter.

“Views are inclined to be amongst essentially the most and least positive within the Asia-Pacific region — more positive in middle-income countries like Malaysia and Thailand, and more negative in high-income ones like Australia, Japan and South Korea,” the report states.

Addressing those issues is imperative to attracting foreign travelers back, writes Songshan Huang, a professor at Australia’s Edith Cowan University, in East Asian Forum.

“Booking high-speed train tickets or entry tickets to popular tourist attractions necessitates using WeChat’s embedded program,” he wrote. “Many establishments exclusively accept WeChat Pay or AliPay, leaving foreign tourists in a predicament in the event that they rely solely on money or bank cards.”