Chinese travelers are canceling plans to visit Thailand during the lunar holiday, as concerns about the kidnapping of actor Wang Xing continue to echo in the country.
The scale of the net trips to Thailand decreased by 15.6 % from January 13 to January 20 of the previous week, after the Wang rescue news from the fraud operations complex along the Thai border Myanmar this month, according to the Chinese Marketing Agency, China office.
The repercussions also extend to other countries in Southeast Asia, with data from the Variflight Air Analysis Company, which shows that Chinese travelers also canceled holiday flights to Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia – albeit to a lesser extent, according to the company president, CEO of the company, Subramania Bhatt.
“The biggest decline is in Thailand. I would like to say that other East Asian countries are the side damage,” he said. “Many people are planning to travel all over the region as one journey … so he canceled some of the trips that arise from these countries as well.”
During the same week of January, Chinese travelers booked more lunar year to other destinations, including Australia (+4.8 %), United Arab Emirates (+4.7 %) and South Korea (+3.9 %).
Publishing Thailand Video created from artificial intelligence On the Facebook Facebook page last Wednesday, the Prime Minister, who is trying to reassure Chinese tourists, is that traveling to Thailand is safe. A few days ago, Chinese officials said they were ready to work with Southeast Asian countries to eliminate cross -border fraud, according to the Chinese State Council.
Yang Lee, an analyst at the Hong Kong Financial Services Company, China Galaxy International, said the reluctance of Chinese travelers from Southeast Asian visit may benefit from other destinations.
“The Chinese people have become more cautious to go to Thailand and also some other southern countries,” CNBC told CNBC.Squawk box asia“Monday.” The hot sites of the external will remain Japan (and) South Korea. For this new Chinese year, people are fully prepared to go to Australia and New Zealand as well as the United States. ”
Fears about human trafficking
The kidnapping of Wang, who was seduced to Bangkok for a job opportunity, has sparked fears between Chinese travelers to visit Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia.
Travel issued: an increase but “uneven”
Despite the cancellation, It is expected that parts of Southeast Asia will attract more Chinese tourists in the new lunar year compared to 2019, according to Bhatt.
Aviation reservations to Singapore increased by 14.2 % and to Malaysia 6.2 % of 2019 levels, according to the data of the trading office in China. South Korea is also expected to see the arrival of Chinese tourists completely during the ceremonial period.
However, Japan – a higher destination for Chinese Chinese travelers this new lunar year – is expected to witness a complete recovery from vacation visitors from China, as data expatriates show a 10 % decrease since 2019.
Bhatt said that external travel from China is “uneven” at the present time, and he added that while pickeding the external travel from China, it is still “far” from long destinations such as Europe and the United States.
In addition to safety, political geography and costs also pay the morale of Chinese travel, which is why the “politically neutral” countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, see that travelers return faster than other places.
“Traveling to Europe becomes more expensive due to the closure of the Russian airspace, so (Chinese travelers) costs much more travel,” he said.
Yang said that despite the weak confidence of consumers in the slow economy, the Chinese people are ready to spend on experiments, especially those who are hiding on travel.
“For the next new Chinese year, we expect the incoming and external travel to maintain a very strong momentum,” she said.
Chinese officials expect to break the record Nine billion trip It will be taken during the new 40 -day travel bribery in the country, which started on January 14.
