China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) is projecting a +7% year-on-year increase in outbound trips from Mainland China – albeit based on the critical assumption that from April the travel restrictions for Chinese travelers will be rescinded.

In that scenario, Cotri says, 2020 will see a total of 181 million trips from Mainland China.

In a key editorial leader in today’s edition of The Cotri Weekly, Founder & Director Professor Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt wrote: “The majority of international, especially intercontinental, travel of Chinese is done for non-leisure purposes, for business, MICE, VFR, studies, health, etc. With the 2019 n-CoV scare over [when it is -Ed], most of these international trips which had to be postponed will be taken. Moreover, different from ‘Western’ individual consumption patterns, the leisure-based purposes will also be made up for at a later time. We could see this pattern after SARS, Avian Flu and other periods of travel restrictions, and we will see this pattern again after the 2019 n-CoV hype has ended.”