At the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, for example, about 1,000 people visited per day at its peak, and at least half of them were from China, said Paul Leharne, the museumвЂ™s supervisor. In Europe, Chinese visitors had emerged as an increasingly important market in recent years. Their prolonged absence would mean travel revenues are unlikely to return to prepandemic levels soon.ДЄnalysts say it could take up to two years before China fully reopens.

Chinese tourists spent roughly $260 billion in 2019, exceeding all other nationalities. No country has been more crucial to global travel in the past decade than China. The downturn is particularly affecting North and Southeast Asia. ItвЂ™s another blow to an industry that was just starting to recover. The result: Shopping malls have emptied out, restaurants have shut down and hotels are deserted. Many people there have decided to just stay put. Returning to China also requires mountains of paperwork and multiple Covid-19 tests. Since August, it has almost entirely stopped issuing new passports, and it has imposed a 14-day quarantine for all arrivals. But they are confronting a new reality: Variants such as Omicron are causing global panic, leading governments to shut borders again, and their biggest spenders - Chinese tourists - arenвЂ™t returning any time soon.ДЄs part of its effort to maintain a zero-Covid approach, China announced that international flights would be kept at 2.2 percent of pre-Covid levels during the winter.

In Europe and Asia, many countries reopened their airports and welcomed tourists. This was supposed to be the year travel came back.

Gals panic 3