Back on track but not a Hi-speed train: China and outbound tourism in 2025

Dear reader,

your humble editor is back from the second trip to China within two months. The impressions are really mixed: On one hand China continues to dazzle with new technology and increasing service quality, on the other hand many people with good connections report on fighting going on behind the curtain and higher levels of uncertainty and anxiety than ever experienced since 1992, when Deng Xiaoping made his famous Southern Inspection Tour, guaranteeing the continuation of the Reform and Opening process.

Outbound tourism is back on track, with the year probably ending with about 110 million outbound trips, albeit more than half of them going no further than Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR. If 2025 will see the return to the 2019 level of 169 million trips is not sure yet, to play safe the official media now talk about only 155 trips in 2019 to make it easier to reach the edited 2019 level.

The second of the NICE Nepal India China Expo 2025 and GITF 2025 roadshows, which took place in St. Regis Hotel in Shenzhen on the 4th of December was well organised and well received. Funnily after arriving from Guangdong by car, your humble editor was told that the next toilet in the building is in the 96th floor, which is also the location of the reception of the hotel. On a more serious note, along the more than 100 km road between the two cities, about ten construction areas with groups of apartment high-rise buildings stood idle, with half-finished buildings surrounded by non-moving cranes, with not a single construction worker in sight.

Returning back to the new home Kathmandu, your humble editor could not only move into a new house but also welcome three additional staff member for the Meaningful Tourism Group, which includes COTRI, to the new office space within GATE Global Academy for Tourism Education. A look from the 6th floor onto Kathmandu can be seen with this text.

The year 2024 is coming soon to an end, so the next edition of COTRI Weekly Editorial will look back at the year and forward to 2025 in terms of China’s outbound tourism development and the many events and conferences COTRI will take part in, from the ATLAS Critical Tourism conference in Hainan to NICE Nepal India China Expo in Pokhara, to a conference in Oman, the COW Colours of the World Expo in Istanbul, the H.O.T.Food Health Tourism conference in Kathmandu and the GITF Guangzhou International Travel Fair in Guangzhou, to name only the events of the first half of 2025.

As always, best regards from Prof. Dr. Arlt and the whole (growing) COTRI INTELLIGENCE team!