Summary China’s preference for domestic travel over international is impacting popular tourism sites in Asia.
Cathay Pacific struggles to recover, with passenger numbers still well below pre-pandemic levels.
Travel restrictions between Hong Kong and Mainland China continue to impact Cathay Pacific’s progress in restoring passenger numbers.
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Most airlines, airports and tourism bodies throughout Asia breathed a big sigh of relief when China progressively reopened its borders to international travelers through 2023. However, it seems there has been a fundamental shift in Chinese travelers’ preferences this year, with domestic destinations growing while international ones decline, leaving a visitor gap in many popular tourism sites.
A long way to recover
Hong Kong and its home airline, Cathay Pacific, have been particularly slow to rebuild toward pre-pandemic numbers. This week, the airline released its April traffic figures, which, somewhat surprisingly, show the airline is still more than 40% behind the number of passengers it carried in April 2019. The picture is much the same for the first four months of this year, with total passenger numbers at 58% of the same period in 2019.
Photo: alphonsusjimos | Shutterstock
The numbers are an improvement on 2023, with April traffic reaching 1.74 million passengers, a 26.1% increase on last year but way below the 3.12 million carried in April 2019. Between January and April, Cathay Pacific (Cathay) carried 7.14 million passengers, a 47.3% increase on the same period last year, but more than five million fewer than in the first four months of 2019.
Related Wow! Cathay Pacific Unveils New Boeing 777 Aria Suites And Premium Economy Cathay Pacific will soon launch its retrofitted 777s, and today unveiled the new business class and premium economy cabins.
Still waiting on free travel from China
What did come as a surprise was to learn that there are still travel restrictions between Hong Kong and parts of Mainland China. Each month, Cathay Pacific Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavina Lau adds her insights to the traffic figures and this week, she said that April was another good month with multiple holiday periods and large-scale events stimulating business and leisure travel. This comment was included in her outlook and came as a surprise:
South Carolina expected to see high Memorial Day Travel numbers
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