By Aishwarya Jain
(Reuters) – The U.S. travel sector will have to wait at least two more years for lucrative Chinese tourism to recover to pre-pandemic levels as slow growth and high costs in the Asian country keep its tourists away from America.
The slower-than-expected China travel rebound may further pressure earnings for hotel operators in the U.S. even as they grapple with normalizing domestic travel driven by persistent inflation.
“There was an expectation that as COVID restrictions eased, travel between the U.S. and China, especially tourist travel, would show large demand growth and a return at least to the pre-COVID levels. No such rebound has occurred,” said Ryan Yonk, senior research faculty at American Institute for Economic Research.
China gradually began lifting travel-related restrictions from January 2023 and fully lifted group tour restrictions in August last year, but the resultant rise in Chinese arrivals to nearly 1.1 million remains 60% below 2019 levels, according…