China-Tourism
Introduction
The COVID-19 Pandemic has been undoubtedly the biggest issue of 2020 and one of the most significant
events in human history. 218 countries around the world are affected by the deadly virus (World Health
Organization, 2020) and China, where the virus originated from, was the first country to start facing the
consequences of COVID-19. The topic of this work will be China’s tourism sector. The goal of the report is
to properly understand how the epidemic has influenced China’s hospitality industry, review their current
adaptations and assess the potential future of it. To achieve a wide scope of information considering the
current global condition, I’ve conducted my analysis through internet using articles from academic journals,
websites of Chinese schools and colleges and information from UN and WHO. All the data gathered from
the applied sources will be processed and relevantly divided by sections to give a simple but informative
outlook on the theme.
Body
Tourism is undoubtedly one of the most important areas of China’s economy, as it had adjusted to 11% of its
total GDP in 2018 and provided 1 in 10 jobs in the country (China Power, 2020). Due to the pandemic,
countries had to close their borders and people had to isolate themselves, and this had a drastic effect on
China. The impact of the virus on tourism is vast, and so the topic will be divided into three aspects –
economic, social and technological.
Economic impact
The total income from international and local tourists has dropped significantly, by approximately 50%:
from 5.7 trillion yuan (871 billion USD) in 2019 (Mohammad, Fatima 2020) to 2.8 trillion yuan (Reuters,
2020). This huge drop in income has a direct effect on the budgets of businesses and employment. The
unemployment rate was 3.6% in 2019, but in February 2020 this number hit 6.2%, almost twice the number.
The lockdowns in all countries also heavily influenced international trade. Due to the pandemic and the bad
rep that China received on news, all travel related business were turned down, like cruise ships, airlines and
high-end hotels (Hoque, et al., 2020). Other places for visiting are closing too, like 70,000 theatres recently
closed (Fotinas, et al., 2020). People are staying away from travelling due to health risks and also financial
issues.
An additional reason to prevent the virus from spread and, consequently limiting the leisure and travel
industry, is because China’s healthcare system was not ready for such intensity and therefore, more patients
cause more problems (Hao, et al., 2020). For example, the lack of space in hospitals has urged to China to
build more hospitals, and the first new built place contains 1,000 beds and was constructed in a matter of 6
days (Williams, 2020).
To help sustain businesses related to tourism, the country has been providing various cash injections. For
example, Hong Kong had the worst plunge of tourists not just because of coronavirus, but also because of
the previous protests in summer of 2019 (Tyson, 2020). Their numbers of tourists dropped down to
approximately 4,000, which is an annual drop of roughly 100%. The administration of Hong Kong, thus,
provided a 90 million USD stimulus to the Hong Kong Tourism Board (International Labor Organization,
2020). Moreover, the city’s government has set up an Anti-epidemic Fund's Travel Agents Subsidy Scheme,
which will be providing from $20,000 to $200,000 to all travel agencies depending on their size, and
individual stimulus for their employees of $5,000 every month for 6 months.
The other side of the coin is that Chinese will not be taking money outside the country, which might have a
positive effect on the country. It is projected to reduce the travel of Chinese people by 23 million trips,
estimating to around 73 billion USD (Fotinas, et al., 2020).
The final forecast for the end of 2020 for this sector is a 75% demand drop in tourism and related services
with an a total of 10% increase in unemployment including the entire workforce (Lee, Park, Arturo, 2020).
Social impact
People in China had spent up to 3 months under strict lockdown from 23rd January to the middle of April
and after that, the measures started to get less restrictive. It would be liable to assume that such a short-term
lifestyle had a drastic effect on people, how they socialize and it will stick with them for quite a while. Scott
and Laws (2006) information mentioned in Richard’s and his colleagues’ research (2020) shares an
important insight – tourist destinations and places include a business model with both businesses and the
residents living in those places that are all connected and make up this touristic environment together. This
highlights the importance of not just businesses and money, but also the presence and attitude of local
people towards these destinations.
In a survey conducted by Richard and three other people (2020) in 3 cities in China, results showed that
people wanted to temporarily close the tourism sphere due to the increase of cross-infections and the
increase in challenge of controlling the virus. Such measures put a lot of stakeholders in this industry onto
risk, so the respondents were asked how much they were willing to pay to cover the costs of restricting
tourism. The average potential contributing from people varies from 200 to 300 yuan, which is 30 to 45
USD. Another thing that was identified in this survey is that younger people offered more compensation due
to their worries about their elder family members. This seems to represent an adequate and responsible
attitude from the youth towards serious problems.
The bright side from the social perspective is the successful completion of one of the biggest cultural events
in China – the Golden Week. This is a National Day holiday lasting 7 days and it is “called "golden week"
because of the biggest week for tourism in China when people have a week off to reunite with families and
take trips” (China Highlights, 2020). It’s an important time of the year for all Chinese people and, despite
the coronavirus pandemic, the numbers have shown an impressive picture: 610 million domestic tourists
celebrating and travelling during this week and having spent 454 billion yuan or 67 billion USD (Huaxia,
2020). The number of tourists dropped by 21% and the revenue by 30% compared to 2019’s Golden Week,
which is believed to be a reasonable drop considering the circumstances (Galbraith, Yu, 2020). This 7-day
period was held in a traditional way with no restrictions. Highlights were the Flag-raising ceremony, more
than 40 museums extending their working hours to provide more cultural events and the Palace museum
achieving its record of 30,000 daily visitors for third time in its history.
Technological Impact
The pandemic has undoubtedly affected the technological aspect of human life, pushing us to digitalize even
more, as the Internet of Things has no barriers for communications and other activities. 765 million of
China’s population uses the internet and during the lockdown their internet consumption extended from 5.6
hours daily, to 7.2 hours a day (Liu, 2020).
Regarding tourism businesses like hotels, the first crisis-management step is to establish proper
communication within the company. Numerous hotel groups in China have increased their usage of local
apps like WeChat and Feishu for their work automation, as well as remote contact (Hao, et al., 2020).
Attracting clients also became an issue, and the hospitality industry put their efforts into online promoting.
Considering the wide use of social media, hotels and travel agencies began to advertise themselves on social
media platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou which rapidly began growing from the start of pandemic (Lau,
2020). One of their new tricks being used is doing live streams and online tours by attracting celebrities and
having them be virtual guides. This method enables businesses to access a lot of potential clients and
simplify contact with them.
Another important aspect that had to be implemented was safer service for clients. This means reducing
human direct and indirect contact. The solutions that hotels used were “the implementation of intelligent
contactless services, including self-check-in, remote check-in, face-scanning, voice control of room service,
robotic room service, and the zero-second check-out” (Hao, et al., 2020). This reduced the time of processes
done by customers and also minimized physical contact which prevented rapid virus transmission.
Gradually, the entire toruism spectre is transforming towards technology to accommodate to the modern
lifestyle. Hotels are getting more digital and “intelligent”. Big Chinese Tech companies (Puietel, Resthour)
are now working together with hotels to develop Artificial Intelligence and introduce them in their hotels
(Hao, et al., 2020). Examples of their applications are smart switches for lights and tech, self-checkouts,
service robots and even more sophisticated uses in the future. Considering the constant improvement of
technology and the realization of fast cellular connection (5G), such transformation will help hotels achieve
efficiency, emit human errors and easier store and process data (Lau, 2020).
Conclusion
Basing off the findings in this research, several conclusions regarding COVID-19’s influence on China’s
tourism can be highlighted. The result of this report provides an outlook on the pandemic’s effect on the
discussed industry and has made the data clear by dividing it into sections.
Coronavirus is the biggest event of 2020 that had mostly negative effects on the entire world, China being
the first country to get affected. Three main areas of China’s tourism were mentioned: economic, social and
technological. The economical side shows that the total revenue had dropped by half equaling to 870 billion
USD and bring unemployment of 1/10 of the workforce. Closed borders and restricted measures in other
countries dropped tourism statistics, while China was dealing with the spread of the virus as well as
supporting industries like tourism with stimulus checks. From the social point of view, people had to follow
three weeks of strict lockdown and willing to do so, even if they had to pay to support businesses (around
250 yuan per person). Regardless of the fear of the virus, after almost 10 months of isolation, citizens went
on to celebrate the Golden Week with relatively small differences of number of local tourists compared to
the previous year. Due to isolation, hotels and travel agencies had to put effort into technology and digital
tools by implementing services like self-checkouts, face recognitions and robots for their service and
internet advertisement for marketing.
Recommendations
On the basis of the findings, two recommendations will be made:
1. All participants of the Tourism sector should always have a wide scope of ways of client interaction.
Both physical and digital platforms and services must be utilized at maximum level possible to be
more sustainable in future disruptions.
2. Consider the public’s opinion when making decisions, similar to the ones made in the pandemic. The
survey showed that people prioritized citizens’ wellbeing over entertainment and business, and were
willing to donate as much as they could to support these businesses and potentially extend the period
of isolation.
Reference List
1.
Hoque, A. (2020). The Effect of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Tourism Industry in China. Nature,
486 (7404), 460-462.