Airports in Europe and North America are buckling under the weight of the summer holiday surge. Meanwhile, China’s long-suffering tourism industry continues to struggle to keep the lights on, having never recovered since the start of the pandemic.
Chinese tourists completed 3.2 billion domestic leisure trips last year — a little over half the number in 2019. Figures from the first quarter of this year paint an even more dire picture for the industry.
This week, The Wire looks at the state of China’s tourism industry: why it’s struggled during the pandemic and questionable hopes for its recovery.
HARD LANDING
Tourism within China is a huge business: At its peak in 2019, the domestic industry generated revenue of $745 billion, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. More than half of that revenue was wiped out in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. Turnover improved slightly last year, but remained down 40 percent from its pre-pand
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