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Chinese travellers shunning tour groups for free and easy trips to Southeast Asia
- Factors such as the shortage of direct long-haul commercial flights are encouraging young tourists to plan their own adventures in Southeast Asia
- While many flight routes will slowly come back, tourist businesses in the region detect a longer-term trend away from large group experiences
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On a pier on the Thai resort of Pattaya that was once teeming with the flags of ever-present Chinese tour groups, Guangzhou natives Huang Hubin and Huang Junjie were enjoying the freedom of their first holiday since China dropped its pandemic travel curbs.
The trip was even more rewarding because the cousins had reserved it themselves.
By booking independently, Hubin and Junjie, a marketing manager and a music producer both in their mid-20s, were liberated from the strict schedule of a guided tour, which before the pandemic was the main form of mass tourism from China to Thailand. More than 10 million Chinese tourists visited in 2019.
But the cousins are part of a post-pandemic cohort chasing bespoke holidays that offer value and different experiences from bus hopping photo-ops, set-menu restaurants and quick stops on packed beaches.
“Thailand is close, easy to get [a] visa and it’s warm,” said Hubin after a day of snorkelling and jet-skiing around an island just off Pattaya.
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