A tourist poses for photos in a lavender field in Sigong Village, Huocheng County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 12, 2023. Sigong Village has planted 12,000 mu (about 800 hectares) of lavender. The lavender planting bases here have helped promote local tourism and the lavender processing industry. In 2022, per capita income in Sigong Village reached 22,000 yuan (about 3,080 US dollars). (Xinhua/Hao Zhao)

 
Many listed tourism companies in China have moved back into the black, their first-half financial reports showed, and industry insiders said that's no surprise because domestic and international travel have rebounded significantly this summer.

Most of the 21 listed tourism companies reported profits in the first half of 2023. 

China CYTS Tours Holding Co, for example, said on Friday that its interim net profit was about 108 million yuan ($15.06 million), up 152.67 percent year-on-year.

Changbai Mountain Tourism Co estimated a net profit of 12.25 million yuan, up 117.09 percent year-on-year. Lijiang Yulong Tourism Co projected a net profit of 110 million yuan to 130 million yuan. 

Xu Xialei, marketing manager at China's CYTS Tours Holding Co, told the Global Times on Monday that the recovery of China's tourism industry is well on track after the COVID-19 response measures were downgraded about six months ago.

Both domestic and cross-border travel have obviously grown, especially since the latter half of June. 

The 2023 summer travel performance is expected to exceed that of 2019. As of mid-June, the number of domestic family trips had increased by seven times from 2022, as shown in a survey targeting China's summer tourism industry revealed by online travel platform Trip.com. 

In the international tourism sector, as the outbound flight capacity has recovered to more than 50 percent of the level in 2019, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe are popular destinations among Chinese tourists. Trip.com predicted that the number of visa applications this year may surpass the level in summer 2019. 

According to data released by Beijing's entry-exit inspection authority in early July, 880,000 people crossed the Beijing customs checkpoints in June, up 25.7 percent month-on-month and hitting a monthly record high for 2023.

"Chinese tourism enterprises moved to repair the damaged industry since the beginning of the year, and the first-half profits marked a rich reward for their efforts," said Xu. 

Xu predicted that with the continuous growth of the nation's economy and personal consumption, China's tourism industry will develop further during other major holidays, including the Mid-Autumn Festival in late September, National Day in October and the New Year's Day.

Global Times