A new formulation: guided by the thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, completely, accurately and comprehensively implement the new development concept, adhere to integrity and innovation, improve quality and efficiency, and integrate development, coordinate the government and the market, supply and demand, protection and development, domestic and international, development and security, and strive to improve the modern tourism system, accelerate the construction of a tourism power, so that the tourism industry can better serve a better life, promote economic development, build a spiritual home, show China's image, and enhance mutual learning among civilizations.
While 2023 is the first year of China's post-pandemic economic recovery, further unimpeded interaction with the world is actually 2024, the year we have witnessed the resumption of visa-free and direct flights with too many. For example, as early as the beginning of this year, Southeast Asian countries ushered in a wave of visa-free access to China; In March, China implemented a visa-free policy for holders of ordinary passports from six countries: Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The most recent event is that on May 17, Cuba announced that from now on, Chinese citizens holding valid ordinary passports will enjoy a visa-free policy for entering and leaving Cuba, transiting or staying in Cuba for a period of no more than 90 days (from the date of entry). And on the same day, direct flights between China and Cuba resumed.
It can be said that countries around the world are hoping to seize the opportunity of post-epidemic recovery to enhance people-to-people exchanges and expand tourism incentives, thereby promoting their own economic development.
"Accelerating the construction of a tourism power" is proposed in this historical context.
To put it bluntly, the tourism industry has been hit the hardest in the three years of the pandemic, especially cross-border travel. Judging from the statistics of various countries around the world, even if the world economy has come out of the epidemic in 2023, the tourism industry is far from returning to the level of 2019 before the epidemic.
Of course, there are a lot of problems behind this.
For example, in the case of the mainland, the recovery of global flights in 2024 is still gradually recovering, and according to the forecast of the Civil Aviation Administration of China at the beginning of 2024, by the end of 2024, the international passenger market will accelerate the recovery to about 6,000 flights per week, returning to about 80% of the pre-epidemic level.
This means that although the global economy has come out of the pandemic, it will take time to return to previous levels after a three-year pandemic shock.
Some people may question, why not return to the pre-epidemic shipping level in one go?
I think, the major airlines also think the same, but the reality does not allow it, not that all parties do not want to recover, but the resumption of flights needs hardware support, that is, there must be sufficient market demand, just to resume flights, no passengers, what is the point of recovery?
This fully illustrates the fact that the resumption of flights must be backed by economic fundamentals.
Judging from the recovery of international flights, the current world economy has not fully recovered to the state before the epidemic, in addition to business travel, tourism travel accounts for a considerable proportion, and it also proves that the tourism industry is directly affected by the global macroeconomy. After all, travel is not a "rigid need", it is an optional consumption.
Only when the economy is prosperous, the tourism industry will prosper, when the economy is in a downturn, the effect of stimulating tourism is not obvious, or that sentence, consumption drives the economy, first of all, consumers have money in their pockets.
Of course, with the economic recovery after two years of the pandemic, there are prerequisites for a new round of tourism prosperity.
I flipped through the Book of Changes, and it was very coincidental that 2025 corresponds to the "travel hexagram", implying that 2025 may usher in a big year of tourism once in 60 years.
It should be noted that the world economy has suffered a crisis, which, in addition to the pandemic, is accompanied by the Ukraine crisis, an aggressive round of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. From the perspective of political economy, these three are intrinsically and inevitably related to the new crown pandemic crisis, when the new crown pandemic gradually fades away, the U.S. inflation crisis is expected to be gradually lifted in the second half of 2024 or the fourth quarter, and the Federal Reserve's interest rate shift will inevitably usher in the easing of the Ukrainian crisis.
From this logical point of view, 2025 is indeed a critical time point for global economic recovery and regional conflict easing, and it is natural that the tourism industry will recover strongly.