纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国旅游经济缓慢恢复现状如何

Since China reopened its borders in 2023 after three years of Covid isolation, domestic travel has thrived and high-speed rail has grown increasingly popular. But international trips in and out of the country are lagging, and flight capacity is still just a third of prepandemic levels.

自中国经历了三年的疫情隔离，于2023年重新开放边境以来，国内旅游蓬勃发展，高铁越来越受欢迎。但进出该国的国际旅行滞后，航班运力仍仅为疫情之前水平的三分之一。

The economic stakes are high. Before the pandemic, Chinese travelers were the world’s biggest spenders, accounting for 20 percent of global tourism spending, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

这对经济有很大影响。根据联合国世界旅游组织的数据，疫情暴发前，中国游客是全球最大的游客消费群体，占全球旅游支出的20%。

In the past year, the Chinese authorities have tried to spur more inbound travel. Among the changes: China has waived travel visas or agreed to extend the length of visa-free travel for visitors from eight countries, including Germany and France.

过去一年里，中国政府试图刺激更多入境旅游。它做出的变化包括对德国和法国等八个国家的游客免签，或同意延长免签证旅行期限。

The main factor holding back international travel by Chinese will continue to be China’s economy. Growth has bounced back from the pandemic, but the weight of a severe real estate downturn has dampened consumer spending and confidence inside China. And global geopolitical tensions remain a wild card. China is engaged in trade disputes with the United States and Europe, home to many major multinational companies. As they think twice about their business in China, travel suffers.

阻碍中国人出国旅游的主要因素仍将是中国经济。中国经济增长已经从疫情中反弹，但房地产严重低迷的压力抑制了中国国内的消费者支出和信心。全球地缘政治紧张局势仍是不确定因素。中国正与许多大型跨国公司所在的美国和欧洲陷入贸易争端，当这些公司慎重考虑对华业务时，旅游业也受到了影响。

Here’s what to know about the state of China’s travel economy.

以下是关于中国旅游经济状况需要了解的事情。

Travel to China ground nearly to a halt in the pandemic. It won’t fully recover until 2025.

疫情期间，前往中国的旅行几乎停止。这要到2025年才能完全恢复。

Throughout the pandemic, China enforced some of the strictest travel rules in the world. Overseas travelers who managed to enter the country sometimes had to quarantine at their own expense for as long as two months.

整个疫情期间，中国实施了一些世界上最严格的旅行规定。即使是设法入境的海外游客，也要自费接受长达两个月的隔离。

As of December, international flight capacity — essentially the number of available seats on flights coming from and going to China — was only 62 percent of what it was in December 2019, according to OAG, a flight data analytics firm. But domestic travel has picked up, with the number of those travelers exceeding prepandemic levels by nearly 10 percent.

根据飞行数据分析公司OAG的数据，截至12月，国际航班运力（即往返中国的航班上的可用座位数量）仅为2019年12月的62%。但国内旅行有所增加，这些旅行者的数量比疫情前的水平高出近10%。

At the start of last year, there were only about 500 international flights every week in China, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the aviation regulator. Now there are about 4,600, and that number is expected to increase to 6,000 by the end of the year — about 80 percent of prepandemic levels.

根据航空监管机构中国民用航空局的数据，去年年初，中国每周只有大约500架次国际航班。现在大约有4600架次，预计到今年年底将增加到6000架次，大约是疫情前水平的80%。

A big test will come next month during the spring festival around the Lunar New Year, typically a heavy travel period when millions of workers travel to their hometowns. Chinese airlines will schedule 2,500 additional international flights to accommodate spring festival visits, China’s aviation regulator said last week.

下个月春节期间一场重大考验即将到来，因为这通常是成百上千万工人返乡的交通高峰期。中国航空监管机构上周表示，中国的航空公司将额外安排2500个国际航班，以满足春节游客的需要。

China’s transport officials said they expected 480 million rail trips to be made during a 40-day travel surge around the spring festival in the weeks before and after the Lunar New Year, a nearly 40 percent increase from last year.

中国交通官员表示，他们预计，在春节前后的40天春运高峰期间，铁路客运量将达到4.8亿人次，比去年增长近40%。

High-speed rail has become a more popular way to travel within the country. China State Railway Group, the national rail operator, said rail trips exceeded 20 million at the start of the Golden Week holiday in October, a high, and the average daily number of passenger trips throughout the year exceeded 10 million.

高铁已成为国内更受欢迎的旅行方式。国家铁路运营商中国国家铁路集团表示，在10月份黄金周假期开始时，铁路旅行超过2000万人次，创下新高，全年平均每日旅客人数超过1000万人次。

Most analysts said they believed that the full recovery of international travel wouldn’t happen until 2025.

大多数分析人士表示，他们认为国际旅游的全面复苏要到2025年才能实现。

In a January research note, economists at Nomura, a Japanese bank, said the pace of the sector’s recovery would largely be determined by how much Chinese travelers were willing to spend. Pandemic-era problems like delays in issuing visas and passports that lasted through 2023 have been addressed.

在1月份的一份研究报告中，日本银行野村证券的经济学家表示，旅游行业的复苏速度将在很大程度上取决于中国游客的消费意愿。签证和护照的签发延迟等持续到2023年的疫情时期问题，目前都得到了解决。

“While supply-side constraints eased, the demand-side drag is now starting to kick in, and sizable headwinds remain for China’s outbound tourism recovery in 2024 and possibly 2025,” the Nomura economists wrote.

野村的经济学家写道：“虽然供应方面的限制有所缓解，但需求方面的拖累现在开始显现，中国出境游复苏在2024年，可能在2025年仍面临相当大的阻力。”

Applying for a visa and visiting China are a bit less complicated.

申请签证和访问中国就没那么复杂了。

In December, China started allowing visitors from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Malaysia and the Netherlands to travel for 15 days without visas, a change it said would last through November 2024. China’s National Immigration Administration said 147,000 visas had been granted in the first six and a half weeks of the program. China also reached agreements to make visa-free travel more accessible for tourists from Thailand and Singapore.

去年12月，中国开始允许来自法国、德国、意大利、西班牙、马来西亚和荷兰的游客免签证旅行15天，并表示这一变化将持续到2024年11月。中国国家移民管理局表示，在该项目实施的前六周半内，已发放了14.7万份签证。中国还达成协议，为来自泰国和新加坡的游客提供更便利的免签证旅行。

For Americans, visa applicants will no longer need to submit documents such as hotel booking records, an itinerary or an invitation letter. The authorities have also cut all visa application fees by 25 percent until the end of the year.

对于美国人来说，签证申请人将不再需要提交酒店预订记录、行程或邀请函等文件。当局还在年底前将所有签证申请费降低25%。

It has also gotten easier for foreigners to pay for things when visiting China. Last July, the main payment platforms, WeChat Pay and AliPay, said they would support foreign credit cards and allow visitors to pay like locals. China has moved away from paper money and coins, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic.

外国人在中国支付费用也变得更容易了。去年7月2日，主要的支付平台微信支付和支付宝表示将支持外国信用卡，让游客可以像本地人一样支付。中国正在淘汰纸币和硬币，这一趋势在疫情期间加速了。

Flights between China and the United States have been only slowly restored. Before the pandemic, there were more than 300 flights every week between the two countries. That number was 36 a week in September and has gradually increased. In November, the countries agreed to increase flights to 70 a week.

中美之间的航班恢复缓慢。疫情之前，两国之间每周有300多个航班。9月，这一数字为每周36次，并逐渐增加。去年11月，两国同意将航班增加到每周70次。

Geopolitical tensions and reluctant Chinese travelers could derail the sector’s recovery.

地缘政治紧张局势和中国游客的踌躇可能会破坏该行业的复苏。

The fraught Chinese-U.S. relationship will continue to lurk in the background of international travel to China.

紧张的中美关系将继续潜伏在中国国际旅行的背景之下。

The U.S. State Department maintains a “Level 3” travel alert on China, warning Americans to “reconsider travel” to the country because of “the risk of wrongful detentions,” among other reasons.

美国国务院维持对中国的“三级”旅行警报，警告美国人“重新考虑前往”中国，因为“有被非法拘留的风险”，以及其他原因。

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has its own travel notice, warning that travelers to the United States have been “harassed and interrogated” at the border with “various excuses,” and that Chinese citizens have been arbitrarily arrested and prosecuted.

中国外交部发布了自己的旅行提醒，警告前往美国的游客在边境曾受到“各种借口”的“滋扰盘查”，中国公民被任意逮捕和起诉。

The changing tastes and expendable income of Chinese travelers could shape how the travel economy’s recovery plays out.

中国游客不断变化的品味和可支配收入可能会影响旅游经济复苏的结果。

“As Chinese households become more price-sensitive and rational, domestic tourism is more preferred, given that it usually takes less time and money,” said Ying Zhang of the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research business.

研究机构经济学人智库的张颖（音）表示：“随着中国家庭对价格变得更加敏感和理性，国内旅游更受青睐，因为通常花费的时间和金钱更少。”