China will resume outbound group travel to a selected group of countries early next month, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. As China downgraded its management of COVID-19 and facilitated the smooth and orderly cross-border travel of Chinese and foreign nationals in early January, the outbound travel market, which had been almost dormant for the past three years, quickly recovered during the Spring Festival.
The ministry said in a notice on its website on Friday that a pilot program will take effect on Feb 6 to allow travel agencies to open outbound group travel for Chinese citizens to 20 countries - Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Fiji, Cuba and Argentina.
At present, Ctrip has launched outbound group travel products and started to accept the booking of popular outbound travel routes including Thailand, Singapore, Switzerland and New Zealand.
Travel agencies will also be allowed to offer flight and hotel packages to tourists starting the same time, according to the notice.
The decision was made at the request of the foreign affairs panel of the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, the country's top COVID-19 response task force, and was based on considerations over COVID-19 control measures and socioeconomic development, the ministry said.
The notice stipulates that tour organizers strictly obey official COVID-19 measures at home and abroad. Tourists will be urged to make sure they are not infected with the highly contagious disease before boarding flights, pay attention to their own safety and health and follow local COVID-19 rules during the journey, and comply with epidemic prevention requirements after returning to their hometown.
