Madrid tourism fair abuzz with return of Chinese visitors
China's prolific and big-spending tourists have been stuck at home, unable to travel for almost three years, and their looming return has industry professionals abuzz at a major Madrid tourism congress this week.
China was the world's largest outbound tourist market before the pandemic, with 154 million international travellers in 2019, according to the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
Travellers from China were also the biggest spenders, accounting for €235 billion in tourism dollars, the Madrid-based organisation said in a report this week.
But travel in and out of China dropped dramatically under China's zero-COVID curbs, which all but shut borders for three years before reopening them on January 8.
The WTO hailed the removal of Beijing's virus travel restrictions as "a significant and much-welcomed step to the recovery of the tourism sector".
"Three years is a long time, we're glad they're coming back," said Angela Harizaj, head of sales for "My Tour in Italy," at the five-day FITUR tourism congress in Madrid. "Before the pandemic, we used to work a lot with the Chinese market," Harizaj added.
The fair, which began Wednesday and wraps up on Sunday, is expected to...