A night in China’s Guizhou province at the Cliff Hotel, pictured here, starts around $83, according to Trip.com, which says the hotel was built in 2023 with 34 rooms. Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images BEIJING — Chinese travelers are increasingly opting for cheaper domestic destinations over foreign tourist spots.
Only 14% of high-income households that traveled internationally last year plan to go abroad again in 2024, according to a survey released this month by consulting firm Oliver Wyman. The segment covers families in mainland China earning at least 30,000 yuan a month ($4,140, or about $50,000 a year). The top reason for preferring their home country was “abundant domestic travel options,” the survey found, followed by “too costly” international travel.
The average cost per person for traveling within mainland China is less than 1,000 yuan, versus several thousand yuan for a trip to Hong Kong or Japan, Oliver Wyman said. Local tourism has been a bright spot in China’s recovery from Covid-19 controls that ended in late 2022. Travel booking site said that in 2023, bookings for rural destinations in China grew by 2.
6 times versus pre-pandemic levels. During a public holiday this year from May 1 to May 5, domestic tourism trips and revenue surged versus pre-pandemic levels in 2019, official data showed. International trips were slightly below 2019 levels, according to CNBC analysis of official figures.
Within mainland China, smaller cities such as Yangzhou, L.
