After the lifting of COVID-19 related mobility restrictions in late 2022, China's domestic tourism quickly picked up in Q1 2023, reaching 1.2 billion person-times, up from 436 million person-times in the previous quarter. Furthermore, the most recent figure is slightly below the last pre-pandemic quarter (1.4 million in Q4 2019). Consequently, the revenue from domestic tourism also jumped to RMB 1.3 trillion (roughly USD 190 billion) from RMB 320 billion in Q4 2022.

However, the recovery of China's outbound tourism is lagging behind, with the number of visitors to major destinations still well below pre-pandemic levels. For instance, Japan, which is among the top destinations for Chinese tourists, recorded only 108,300 visitors from China in April 2023, which is less than 15% of the number in April 2019. Singapore, which attracted an average of more than 300,000 visitors from China per month in 2019, reported just 90,725 Chinese tourists in April this year, representing only around 30% of the pre-pandemic level. Traveling to the United States also remained subdued in April, with 64,637 people as opposed to over 300,000 Chinese tourists in January 2020.

On the upside, despite the overall slow recovery in outbound tourism, the rebound of short-haul travel from mainland China to Hong Kong has significantly accelerated since February 2022. The number of travelers skyrocketed from 280,525 in January to over 1.1 million in March and nearly 2 million in April.