Beijing’s decision to allow group travel to Canada to resume for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a surge in interest in visiting the country among Chinese consumers, with Chinese travel platforms recording a jump in related searches.
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China announced it was ending the group tour ban in early November, just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in South Korea and called for relations between the two countries to get “back onto the right track”.
The move triggered an immediate reaction on Chinese travel platforms, with searches for flights to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto on Qunar jumping by 223 per cent, 137 per cent and 61 per cent, respectively, within 30 minutes of the news breaking, according to the site’s parent company, Trip.com Group.
Another platform, Fliggy, said it had recorded a “nearly twofold surge” in searches for flights to Canada in the hour after the announcement was made, compared with the day before.
By Tuesday, the number of bookings by Chinese travellers bound for Canada was up 6 per cent week on week, according to Singapore-based travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk.
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“The interest to travel – searches on online platforms and inquiries to travel agents – has surged, with platforms reporting double the searches immediately after the announcement compared to the previous day,” said Subramania Bhatt, the company’s CEO.
Chinese tourism to Canada was steadily growing before the pandemic, with visitor numbers rising to just over 708,000 in 2019, according to Destination Canada, the country’s national tourism organisation.