Passport Issuance Recovers to 2019 Levels
Actual Travel Shows Slower Recovery Pace
The number of new passports issued in China during the first half of this year has recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels. However, the actual number of outbound travelers during the same period reached only half of that in 2019.
According to the China National Immigration Administration on the 19th, over 10 million ordinary passports were issued in China from January to June this year. This represents a 2647.5% surge compared to last year and is said by the Immigration Administration to be similar to the level in 2019.
However, overseas travel has not yet returned to normal levels. Cross-border trips in the first half of the year totaled 168 million from China, an increase of 169.6% compared to the previous year. Yet, compared to 2019, this is only 48.8%, less than half. About half of the outbound travelers were residents of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (74.9 million trips). Mainland residents accounted for 80.3 million trips, and foreigners recorded 8.4 million trips.
The number of foreigners with residence permits in China was approximately 379,000, which is 86.7% of the same period in 2019. The Immigration Administration explained, "To meet the public's demand for entry and exit, after upgrading COVID-19 management to Grade B, we have fully restored immigration management policies and measures."
Due to the recent economic slowdown, Chinese people tend to prefer domestic travel over overseas trips. In the first half of this year, the number of train passengers in China was 1.77 billion, a 2% increase compared to the same period in 2019 (1.735 billion). The average daily number of passenger train operations in the first half was 9,311, an 11.4% increase compared to the first half of 2019.
According to Bloomberg News, the scale of Chinese tourist visits this year compared to 2019 was 38.8% for Indonesia, 35.9% for Thailand, 34.3% for Vietnam, 25.2% for Singapore, and 13.8% for the Philippines.
One reason is that the group tour market, which is the main form of overseas travel for Chinese tourists, has not fully recovered. In the first quarter, group tourists among Chinese outbound travelers accounted for only 1.6%, a 30 percentage point decrease compared to the same period in 2019. China allows group tours only to 60 countries, not including South Korea.
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