Since March 15, China has authorized the resumption of organized trips to France. But the return of tourists will take time. After three years without working, the agencies are not yet ready. Some also mention difficulties with visas.
Tourism professionals in France will have to wait a while longer before seeing the two million or so Chinese tourists who came to visit France each year before the epidemic. Since March 15, China has authorized the resumption of organized trips to around forty countries, including France. These group trips are the means used by most Chinese to travel abroad, but the recovery looks very slow. The huge organized travel industry came to a complete halt during the three years of covid and it is struggling to get back on the road.
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At the premises of TLS Contact in Beijing, the company that receives visa applications on behalf of the French Embassy, we meet a 28-year-old Beijinger who has come to inquire about getting her visa. She was looking forward to the resumption of group travel. “The last three years of the epidemic have made everyone nervous, she explains. I want to travel to relax. I need a relatively long break. I love the south of France, I want to stay a month and go to a city or two. I can’t wait to take this trip. Finally, I’m going to be able to go out and have fun.”
“We need to hire staff”
But not everything is so simple. The organized travel sector, a veritable industry in China, needs to be rebuilt. During the three years of Covid and border closures, many agencies have closed or lost their staff. The resumption of activities will not happen in a few days. “It’s like starting from scratch“, explains He Ming director of a tourism agency who has just returned to work. “This recovery is great news, as the epidemic has dealt a severe blow to our tourism industry. We here have to hire staff, because our former employees have changed the profession since the epidemic. We are very busy. We must also reconnect and set prices with our partners in France, hotels, restaurants, buses, performance halls. The full recovery will not be possible this year.“
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And if the Chinese government has authorized the resumption of these organized trips, other barriers remain, affirms Zhang Fangrui who heads another agency: “Many flights have yet to resume. Visa appointments are all very late and there is a very high refusal rate“, he specifies.
On visas, after three years of almost no activity, the service provider of the French Embassy TLS Contact also needs time to get back on the road. The procedures are longer. Two travel agencies also explain to us that, in the case of France, since individual travel resumed in January, the rate of refusal of tourist visas is much higher than before the epidemic. Requested by franceinfo, the French Embassy assures that this rate has not increased significantly.
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According to official figures which combine data from all French consulates in China (excluding Hong Kong), the visa refusal rate was 5.3% in 2018 (all types of visas) and 5.6% in 2019. last January, it rose to 6% and 6.8% in February. During a visit this Wednesday to the premises of TLS Contact, the French ambassador to China Bertrand Lortholary assured in a tweet that “the Embassy was doing everything possible to accommodate the continued increase in visa applications.“
“We are not going to quickly find the same level of reservation”
Li Ran has been a guide for over 20 years, specializing in group travel. What worries him is the level of prices which risks slowing down the massive return of Chinese tourists to Europe. “With the impact of the epidemic, travel, in particular to Europe, is really more expensive, he slips. The Chinese don’t have a lot of money in reserve for travel, so I’m not very optimistic. We are not going to quickly find the same level of reservation compared to before the epidemic.
The price of a ten-day organized trip to France has skyrocketed. It was around the equivalent of 2,400 euros before the epidemic. Today, Chinese tourists have to pay nearly 5,000 euros.