The markets have gone dark. In Thailand, bored sholders wait for customers who never show up. Tour guides have been laid off. In Paris and Rome, the long lines of people with sun hats and selfies are a thing of the past.
The year travel came back was supposed to be this one. Many countries in Europe and Asia reopened their airports to tourists. They are facing a new reality, that Omicron is causing global panic, leading governments to shut borders again, and their biggest spenders are not returning any time soon.
International flights will be kept at 2.2 percent of pre-covid levels during the winter as part of China's effort to maintain a zero-covid approach. Since August, it has stopped issuing new passports and imposed a 14-day quark for all arrivals. Returning to China requires a lot of paperwork and multiple Covid-19 tests.
Many people have decided to stay.
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Chinese tourists in Rome.
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A deserted Colosseum in March 2020.
China has been the most important country for global travel in the past decade. Chinese tourists spent more money than all other nationalities. Travel revenues are unlikely to return to pre-prepandemic levels soon because of their absence. It could take up to two years for China to reopen.
The shopping malls are empty. The restaurants have closed. The hotels are empty.
North and Southeast Asia are being affected by the downturn. Nihat Ercan, the head of investment sales for the Asia Pacific at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, said that China is the top source of tourism in Asia.
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The Royal Caribbean cruise ship "Mariner of the Seas" will carry Chinese tourists to South Korea in the fall of 2013.
The discovery of Omicron has led to travel restrictions being imposed. The industry was still reeling from the lack of Chinese tourists and was just starting to recover.
In the Or Kor fruit market, where Chinese tourists used to gather around tables to eat durian, business has stopped. The durian seller used to keep up to 400 kilograms of the fruit in stock, but had to give it away three to four times a week to keep up with demand. She had to take a loan to make ends meet.
She said that the loss of income is huge. We are only holding onto the hope that it will get better someday.
The government in Vietnam says that 95 percent of tourism businesses have stopped operations because of the Pandemic.
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The Grand Palace in Thailand is visited by Chinese tourists.
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The Grand Palace, which used to get about 22,000 tourists a day, was almost empty in 2020.
Chinese visitors accounted for 32% of the total number of foreign tourists into the country before the Pandemic.
The director of a travel company in the city said that the service industry has died.
Franky Budidarman, the owner of one of two major travel agencies on the island that caters to Chinese tourists, said that many tourist agencies have either sold their vehicles or had them taken away by their leasing companies.
Mr. Budidarman said he had to cut the salaries of his office workers by half in order to run a food delivery service and a cafe. He said that he was grateful that he had survived for two years. I wonder how I could have done this.
The places that cater to Chinese tourists have suffered a lot. The number of tourists from China who came to Jeju Island in 2020 decreased by 90 percent from the previous year. In the first nine months of this year, that number was only about 5,000.
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Andrew Testa is a writer for The New York Times.
Hong said that half of the duty-free shops that cater to Chinese tourists have closed. The Big Market Shopping Center used to sell island specialties like chocolate and crafts, but all but three of the 12 employees were laid off in July.
He said that when the virus began spreading, everyone started counting their days down. We knew there wouldn't be any business soon.
Chinese visitors have become an important market in recent years, despite being less common in Europe. The supervisor of the museum said that at least half of the visitors were from China.
The museum has attracted only 10 percent of its usual numbers since reopening. He said that it opened an online store this year to sell merchandise and souvenirs, and that a third of it was being shipped to China.
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Chinese tourists are outside of the Louvre Museum.
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The same spot in December 2020.
The director of the Colosseum in Rome said that they felt the absence of Chinese tourists.
Around 40 percent of international visitors to the Colosseum in the year were from China, according to Ms. Russo. The Chinese language was included in the guides and panels of the site that year.
The number of international tourists arriving in Italy is down 55 percent, compared with a Europe-wide drop of 48 percent, according to statistics issued in June by ENIT, the national tourism agency. Two million Chinese tourists visited Italy in 2019.
Fausto Palombelli, head of the tourism section of Unindustria, a business association in the Lazio region, which includes Rome, said that their disappearance has dealt a devastating blow to some businesses.
Rome has taken steps to cater to visitors from China. Taxi drivers were taught to say thank you to their Chinese customers in either Cantonese or Mandarin. The company that manages the main airport in Italy, Fiumicino, offers a personal shopping service with no value-added tax to attract Chinese travelers.
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Chinese tourists in front of the Harbour Bridge in Australia.
It may be months before Chinese tourists return to France, so some are trying to keep in touch with potential customers.
Catherine Oden, who works for Atout France, the national institute in charge of promoting France as a tourist destination, had to learn how to live-stream virtual activities on Chinese social media platforms.
She said they want to be present in their minds. France is their first destination once everything gets back to normal.
Long lines of Chinese tourists used to be a common sight in Paris. The retail manager of a luxury boutique on the Champs-lysées said that before the Pandemic, they had four Chinese-speaking salespeople. We only have one left, and no intention to recruit any more.
Mr. Yesli said that the store used to sell a red and gold metal box containing hand creams for Chinese tourists. The boxes are on the bottom shelf because of lackluster sales.
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Chinese tourists arrive in Indonesia in January 2020.
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The New York Times has a story on the beach in Indonesia.
Vo Kieu Bao Uyen, Dera Menra Sijabat, John Yoon, and Amy Chang Chien contributed to the report.
