热点思考｜入境游“有多火”？（申万宏观 · 赵伟团队)

Group 1 - The tourism market is experiencing a strong recovery, with inbound tourism showing particularly robust growth, as evidenced by flight execution and travel orders. In 2024, domestic travel has rebounded to 56.1% of historical trends, while inbound tourism has reached 81.9% of historical trends, with travel exports recovering to 138% of 2019 levels [2][10][83] - From the perspective of visitor demographics, tourists from Southeast Asia are showing significant recovery in inbound tourism, while recovery from regions like North America is slower. In 2024, the proportion of visitors to Shanghai from Southeast Asia is 22.5%, up 6.8 percentage points from 2023, while the proportion from North America has decreased by 2 percentage points [2][17][83] - The recovery pace of China's inbound tourism market is accelerating after 2024, indicating that the tourism market's recovery is not solely dependent on scale expansion. By April 2025, inbound tourist numbers in Shanghai reached 115.3% of the 2019 average, surpassing countries like Thailand and Singapore [3][23][83] Group 2 - The increase in inbound tourism is driven by the facilitation of visa policies and cultural exports, which effectively stimulate inbound demand. Since 2024, the expansion of visa-free policies has significantly boosted inbound tourism, with 20.12 million foreign visitors entering through visa exemptions, a year-on-year increase of 112.3% [4][26][84] - Historical examples show that optimizing visa policies can effectively release inbound tourism demand. For instance, Japan's gradual relaxation of visa policies from 2013 led to a substantial increase in inbound visitors, from 8.358 million in 2012 to 31.882 million in 2019 [4][34][84] Group 3 - The potential for growth in inbound tourism is significant, as the current export of travel and entertainment services as a percentage of GDP is notably lower than that of other countries, primarily due to the low openness of the service sector. In 2024, travel exports are projected to account for only 0.1% of GDP, compared to a global average of 1.6% [6][50][61] - The Chinese government is increasing its focus on the opening of the service sector, which is expected to release substantial demand for inbound tourism. Policies aimed at enhancing service sector openness have been introduced, including a comprehensive pilot program to accelerate the opening of the service industry [7][66][61]