e-commerce marketer Tianni Ren immediately began planning a team building trip for her 14 staff to Australia, hoping to see its stunning pink salt lakes that had captivated her on social media.
After three years of struggle and anticipation, the widely expected wave of returning Chinese tourists Down Under has turned out to be a trickle as the visa rules - coupled with relatively high costs, a lack of flights and an exodus of Mandarin-speaking guides - squeeze Australia’s fourth-largest export industry.
Flights from mainland China to Australia, meanwhile were just one-fifth of pre-pandemic capacity in February, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium, as soaring fuel costs jacked up fares and dented demand. “It’s definitely tied up in geopolitics and trade and other things where we’ve seen a decline. You can’t disentangle that from the current situation,” said Dr Paul Stolk, a lecturer at University of Newcastle business school who is working on a university-government collaboration to diversify the tourism sector.
“We’re hearing that can’t wait to get out and travel after not being able to travel for so long, and Australia has always been a place that has high aspiration to travel, but our capacity to service has been reduced.”
In any case, why visit a hostile nation?
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