Impact of Slowdown of Outbound Tourism from the People’s Republic of China on Asia and the Pacific

The study analyzes the impact of changes in outbound tourism from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the subregions of Asia and the Pacific—Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Central and West Asia, and the Pacific. It conducts three simulations to understand the broader economic and sectoral impacts of: 1) the expansion of outbound tourism from the PRC from 2017 to 2018; 2) its slump in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and 3) its cautious recovery from 2021 to 2022. The study broadly finds that gross domestic product (GDP) and export gains for Asia and the Pacific subregions are notable when the number of outbound tourists is high, i.e., prior to the pandemic and later in 2021–2022, and again when the PRC slowly opened its borders. Conversely, GDP and export losses are notable when outbound tourism fell in 2020 due to pandemic. Sectoral impacts are heterogenous, and the impact on exports is not necessarily aligned with that on GDP, because there are trade diversions and sectoral resource diversions that mute the impact going from exports to GDP. Given these dependencies on the PRC’s outbound tourism, the study suggests that economies in Asia and the Pacific consider diversifying their source markets through travel facilitation and better connectivity.