Chinese travelers scrap holiday trips to Thailand over safety concerns

Chinese travelers are canceling plans to visit Thailand during the Lunar New Year holiday, as concerns over the kidnapping of actor Wang Xing continue to reverberate through the country.

Net booking volume for trips to Thailand fell 15.6% from Jan. 13 to Jan. 20 from the previous week, after news of the rescue of Wang from a scamming compound along the Thai-Myanmar border this month, according to the marketing agency China Trading Desk.

The fallout is also extending to other countries in Southeast Asia, with data from the aviation analytics company VariFlight showing Chinese travelers also canceled holiday trips to Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia — albeit to a lesser degree, according to the company’s CEO, Subramania Bhatt.

“The biggest decline is in Thailand. The other Southeast Asian countries are, I would say, collateral damage,” said Bhatt. “A lot of folks plan to travel around the region as a single trip … so some have cancelled trips that originate from these countries too.”

During the same week in January, Chinese travelers booked more Lunar New Year trips to other destinations, including Australia (+4.8%), the United Arab Emirates (+4.7%) and South Korea (+3.9%), data showed.

Thailand posted an AI-generated video on the government’s Facebook page last Wednesday of its prime minister attempting to reassure Chinese tourists that traveling to Thailand is safe. Days earlier, Chinese officials said they were prepared to work with Southeast Asian nations to crack down on cross-border scamming compounds, according to China’s State Council.

Chinese travelers’ reluctance to visit Southeast Asia may be benefitting other destinations, said Yang Lei, analyst at the Hong Kong-based financial services company China Galaxy International.  

“Currently, Chinese people are becoming more cautious to go to Thailand and also some other Southeast countries,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” Monday. “The hot locations for outbound will continue to be Japan [and] South Korea. And for this Chinese New Year, people are also quite willing to go to Australia, New Zealand and also the United States.”  

The kidnapping of Wang, who was lured to Bangkok for a job opportunity, reignited fears among Chinese travelers to visit Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia.

Despite the cancellations, parts of Southeast Asia are expected to attract more Chinese tourists this Lunar New Year than in 2019, according to Bhatt.  

Flight bookings to Singapore are up 14.2% and to Malaysia 6.2% from 2019 levels, according to China Trading Desk’s data. South Korea is also expected to see Chinese tourist arrivals fully rebound during the festive period.

However, Japan — a top destination for outbound Chinese travelers this Lunar New Year – isn’t expected to see a full recovery of holiday visitors from China, with data showing arrivals will still be down 10% from 2019.  

Outbound travel from China is “uneven” right now, said Bhatt, who added that while outbound travel from China is picking up, it’s still “way off” to long-haul destinations like Europe and the United States.

In addition to safety, geopolitics and costs are also driving Chinese travel sentiment, he said, which is why “politically neutral” countries, like Singapore and Malaysia, are seeing travelers return faster than other places.

“Travel to Europe is getting more expensive because of Russian airspace closure, so it’s costing [Chinese travelers] much more to fly,” he said.

Despite weak consumer confidence in a slowing economy, Chinese people are willing to spend on experiences, especially those involving travel, Yang said.

“For the upcoming Chinese New Year, we expect the inbound and outbound travel will maintain very solid gross momentum,” she said.

Chinese officials expect a record-breaking nine billion trips will be taken during the country’s 40-day Lunar New Year travel rush, which began on Jan. 14.