Chinese tourism: When lucrative visitors will return to the Gold Coast after three-year Covid break

The great fall of China is over, with tourists from Australia’s most lucrative market set to flood back to the Gold Coast in a major boost to the economy. FULL DETAILS

THE great fall of China is over, with tourists from Australia’s most lucrative market set to flood back to the Gold Coast.

Chinese visitors are on track to return to 80 per cent of pre-Covid levels by Christmas, according to new data showing the impact of the Asian giant ending its travel restrictions after nearly three years.

Civic and tourism leaders are preparing to ramp up a major charm offensive in a bid to lure back pre-pandemic visitor figures – more than 275,000 annually – by early 2024.

Mayor Tom Tate plans to travel to China later this year to renew the Gold Coast’s sister city relationships with Chengdu and Taipei and pitch the benefits of coming back to the Glitter Strip.

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate. Picture: NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

While Destination Gold Coast will host a delegation of high-level Chinese tourism figures in the coming weeks.

Mr Tate will ask his council colleagues in coming weeks to approve a flight to China, arguing it is essential to the city’s economic future.

“China was our number one source market for international visitors to the city pre-Covid, so we are keen to welcome them back and much like we were all itching to travel again after we dealt with the pandemic, I know the Chinese are waiting – passports in hand – to come back to our golden shores to stay, eat and shop in our city,” he said.

“From a council perspective, despite the travel restrictions, we never stopped our engagement with our sister cities in China and we have maintained our strong, civic relationships and promoted interaction between China and our Gold Coast businesses, community groups and residents; namely through music, arts and culture programs; expos; and online education exchanges.

Chinese Tourists Qiqi Si and Nana Chao enjoy time on Surfers Paradise Beach. They were among hundreds of thousands who used to visit the city annually. Picture: Adam Head

“We are working on our International Trade and Investment Program currently and it is my hope to reignite our face-to-face engagement in China. I look forward to meeting with my counterparts in our sister cities, like Chengdu, as soon as possible.”

China rapidly overtook other nations to become the cornerstone of the Gold Coast’s tourism sector through the 2010s, sparking a wave of development and property investment.

More than 275,000 visitors from China travelled to the city in 2019, the last per-pandemic year, a number which plummeted by more than 90 per cent in early 2020 when the coronavirus began rapidly spreading around the globe.

At the time the top five international markets were China, New Zealand at 210,000, Japan at 70,000, the United Kingdom and the United States at a record 45,000.

Beyond tourism, China was also the Gold Coast’s biggest market for international students at the city’s universities.

The Chinese tourism market used to be the Gold Coast’s largest. Picture: Adam Head

The Gold Coast will welcome more than 120 key tourism figures from China in coming weeks when the city hosts the Australian Tourism Exchange convention.

Destination Gold Coast head of stakeholders and strategy, Rachel Hancock said more flights were expected to come out of China late this year or in early 2024.

“The Gold Coast has the advantage of hunting as a pack, with Destination Gold Coast this month joining TEQ’s Queensland mission in Shanghai and Guangzhou to host a tourism, aviation and business events meeting program that reacquaints them with our city and to gain invaluable insights,” she said.

“The most recent arrivals data shows that the number of Chinese visitors to Australia is rising, albeit slowly and for 2022, Chinese visitation was down more than 90 per cent on 2019, however for December 2022, this was only just over 85 per cent down so there is improvement and this will only continue to build.

“Tourism Australia anticipates Chinese visitation to Australia will be restored to 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels by later this year.

“There are still significantly fewer international carriers flying out of China than before the pandemic, however we anticipate this to change over 2023 and into 2024 with increasing demand, the return of more aircraft to long haul routes and a lowering of international airfares.”

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