How will the liberalization of entry and exit policies affect the tourism market?

As soon as the news came out, in just 15 minutes, the search volume for international air tickets on an OTA (online travel) platform increased 7 times. Data from another platform also showed that the search volume for popular overseas destinations within half an hour increased year-on-year. The number has increased tenfold, and searches for outbound (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) air tickets and hotels have reached their peaks in three years.

Some international students have put it on their agenda to return to their home countries, and many are preparing to make long-awaited overseas trips. When the new coronavirus was raging, "foreign import prevention" was regarded as a requirement to strictly observe the security of entry and exit countries, and then from 14+14, 14+7 to 7+3, 5+3 and then to 0, from the establishment of inbound flights From the circuit breaker mechanism to the cancellation of the mechanism to the cancellation of the "Five Ones" and passenger load factor restrictions and other international passenger flight quantity control measures. It can be seen that my country's entry and exit policies have been dynamically adjusted based on factors such as the incubation period and pathogenicity of the virus, which is quite obvious.

Data map: Foreigner entry and exit service area

As we all know, the "blockade and control" policy of the epidemic in the past two years has been very difficult for the comprehensive tourism service sector with outbound tourism as the main source of income. A devastating blow.

According to the "China Outbound Tourism Development Annual Report (2022-2023)", from 2020 to 2022, the number of outbound tourists in my country will decrease by 400 million. After the outbound tourism business was suspended, the performance of related tourism companies was severely damaged.

However, with the liberalization of entry and exit policies, the worst days of the tourism industry may have passed, and tourism demand is expected to bottom out after the opening.

It will still take time for the complete recovery of entry and exit. Referring to the markets that have already opened up, Japan and South Korea have announced in the middle of the year that they will open cross-border travel, but so far the number of entries and exits has not returned to the level. At pre-epidemic levels, local consumption is still dominated by restaurants and hotels, while long-distance and entry-exit consumption will be slower.

The current entry and exit policies of major countries are as follows:

United States: Fully vaccinated, incoming passengers can enter the country if they sign a declaration form.

Japan: People who have received three doses of domestically produced vaccines do not need to be quarantined when entering the country. Those who have not been vaccinated must provide a negative nucleic acid certificate within 72 hours before entering the country.

The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand: No quarantine required, normal entry.

Image source: Baidu Network

Faced with the full liberalization of entry and exit, the recovery of the tourism industry also means that we will be exposed to more and more complex strains of the virus!

What strains are there now?

Image source: Baidu Network

At present, the domestic strains are generally the BF.7 strain and the BA.5 strain, both of which have been almost retired abroad.

The strains currently emerging abroad are BQ.1.1 and XBB.

The BQ.1.1 strain, also called the Cerberus strain, is currently the dominant strain and accounts for the largest proportion of the infected population. It has already overtaken the BF.7 strain and BA.5 The virus strain has no place to live and its living space has been deprived.

The latest XBB strain just appeared 4 weeks ago, accounting for 2.7% at that time. In just one month, the positive rate increased 6 times, reaching 18.3%, and it is still increasing. Medical experts It is estimated that XBB will become the dominant strain in the United States in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital, said frankly: "Now we are infected with BF.7 and BA.5.2. If new mutant strains appear, there is still a risk of reinfection." After the infection recovers, Reinfection with the new coronavirus after a period of time is often caused by the mutation of the new coronavirus.

So, should you choose to travel abroad or should you strictly guard against the new strain?