China lifts outbound tour ban for key markets including USA

The PRC Ministry of Culture and Tourism has announced the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions on outbound group tours to additional key markets including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany and the UK as well as the USA, with immediate effect.

The ban on outbound tours to Canada remains in place because of troubled relations between the 2 countries related to issues including human rights, trade practices and Chinese espionage in Canada.

This was China's 3rd group of reopened countries so far in 2023.

The initial reopening in January included 20 countries including Thailand, Russia and Cuba.

In March, another 40 countries including France, Portugal and Brazil were added to the reopened list.

Countries' relations with China seems to be driving the pattern of this rollout.

PRC's international air capacity is still at only 53% of 2019 level.

Although summer 2023 has been largely written off, destinations still hold out hope for Chinese visitation inn the period between Golden Week (1-7 October 2023) and the next Lunar New Year which begins 10 February 2024.