The Chinese Tourism Association in Portugal considers that the reopening of China is “good news” for Portugal, as operators around the world prepare for the return of tens of millions of Chinese to the global market.

“The reopening of China is good and positive news for the tourism industry in Portugal,” said Yong Liang, president of the association, which was founded in February 2019, with the aim of promoting Portugal in China as a tourist destination. .

Stressing the importance of increasing the frequency of air connections between the two countries, Liang said he believed that the number of tourists visiting Portugal would increase “month by month”.

The previously established association aims to reach one million Chinese tourists by 2025.

“With a pandemic, it may take a little longer, but we will continue to work towards that first objective, as well as to respond to the challenge presented to us of increasing the average stay of Chinese tourists in Portugal”, said Yong Liang.

According to data provided to Lusa by Tiago Brito, the permanent representative of Turismo de Portugal in China, more than 385,000 Chinese visited Portugal in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. Tourists from China spent a total of 224 million euros in the country, an increase of 20% compared to 2018.

The Chinese are among the highest spending tourists.

China, the largest source of tourists in the world, kept its borders closed for almost three years, as part of the policy of ‘zero cases’ of covid-19, which was dismantled last month after protests in several cities in the country. .

Under that policy, anyone arriving in the country had to comply with a quarantine period of up to three weeks in designated facilities. The number of international flights was reduced by up to 2% compared to the pre-pandemic period.

The air connection between Portugal and China started to be made only once a week. Until the beginning of the pandemic, the flight was carried out three times a week.

The airline Beijing Capital Airlines, which operates the connection, predicted to Lusa that the replacement of the original frequency should be done by the summer, it planned that Chinese agencies are not yet organizing trips to Portugal and Spain.

“It will depend on market developments,” said a company source.

The restriction of commercial flights to Europe, the many Chinese with expired passports or without a Schengen visa, means that the impact of China’s reopening may take some time to materialize.

Yang Qian, a Chinese native of Hebei province, northern China, told Lusa that she had to postpone the appointment to apply for a passport, given the “hours” queue that now forms every day at the Administration Division of Departures and Entrances of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, an agency in charge of making and renewing the travel document.

The China Overseas Tourism Research Institute estimated that 18 million Chinese tourists will travel overseas in the first half of the year, followed by 40 million in the second.

In 2019, 155 million Chinese traveled abroad, according to an analysis by US investment bank Citigroup.

The same analysis found that, in total, tourists from mainland China spent US$255 billion (€235 billion) abroad in the last year before the pandemic.

The analysis projected a solid recovery in the first quarter of 2023 and a massive return to tourism in the second.

“This year I will certainly travel across borders”, explained to Lusa Han Qing, a Chinese native of Beijing. “It’s time to reconnect with the world”, he added.