Highlights
- Chinese citizens have been ordered to not leave the country for any non-essential reason.
- Tourism recovery will hinge on Australia approving China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, an expert says.
- Tourism Minister Dan Tehan wants Chinese travellers to return to pre-pandemic levels but some people fear for their personal safety due to worsening diplomatic relations between both countries.
As the Australian tourism sector looks to reopen to international travellers towards the end of 2021, one group may be noticeably absent.
The majority of China’s 1.4 billion people remain stuck inside their own “fortress”.
Mass testing, sudden lockdowns, a ban on non-essential outbound or inbound travel – these are some of China’s zero-tolerance approaches to containing the Delta variant as it spreads across the country, albeit in low numbers.
As Prime Minister Scott Morrison prepares to open Australia’s borders to international tourists once 80 per cent of eligible Australians are vaccinated against Covid-19, there may be a substantial wait before Chinese tourists again become a feature of Australian cities and regional centres.
Chinese tourism operators at a standstill
While China’s reopening remains speculative, in Tasmania at least, many Chinese tour guides have already left the industry.
The latest Covid outbreak across Sydney and Melbourne left operators with virtually no customers.
"Other than the occasional tourist from Western Australia, the travel industry here is at a standstill,” says local tour guide Daniel Li. 
“We’re watching government announcements very closely. Obviously, we’re waiting to see if Scott Morrison will ease Australia’s international border restrictions.”
Tour guide Daniel Li is hoping mainland Chinese tourists return Down Under in the middle of next year. Source: Juan Zhang
Before the pandemic, 70 to 80 per cent of Mr Li's customers came from mainland China.
Government statistics show Chinese visitors made up Australia’s largest tourist market with 1.43 million visiting each year, spending almost $12 billion prior to the pandemic.
Mr Li is hopeful and eagerly waiting for a 2022 mid-year return of Chinese travellers.
“We’ll experience a recovery once the mainland Chinese tourists are allowed out. Our industry will slowly recover. But we can’t recover what we’ve lost overnight."
Pent-up demand as well as uncertainty about long-haul travel
Mr Li believes while some mainland Chinese may remain cautious about travelling abroad, for others, the appetite for travel is growing.
“I think there’ll be some people from mainland China who want to travel overseas straight away and who aren’t afraid of any travel inconveniences they may come across,” he says.
Jolin Liu, a university professor in Beijing, says she is one of them.
Some Chinese travellers can't wait for the outbound leisure travel ban to be lifted. Source: AAP
But the fully vaccinated Ms Liu says she’s keen on domestic travel for now while it remains the “safer” option.
“There are a lot of places within China I haven’t been to. Many people are wanting to travel domestically,” she says.
Although China has surpassed the two billion jab mark, enough to cover almost 80 per cent of the population, a showed a vast majority of Chinese travellers were uncertain or unwilling to travel overseas until it is absolutely safe.
Min Shao, a 52-year-old office worker, says she has put her Australian travel plans on hold until she feels safe leaving her hometown Hangzhou in China’s Zhejiang province.
“If our government doesn’t allow us to leave, we won’t leave. They want to protect us,” she says.
Unfriendly diplomatic ties impact future tourists
There’s no denying Australia-China diplomatic relations have worsened over the past year amid the rise of , both events deterring Chinese travellers.
"We need to be able to feel safe,” says Ms Shao who says stories of racial attacks targeted at Chinese people in the US makes her hesitant about flying to Western nations.
At the end of April, China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, suggested the Chinese public may elect not to visit Australia if Canberra continued to call for inquiries into the origins of the coronavirus.
In the March , Chinese travellers were already found to have mixed perceptions of Australia.
The rise of Asian hate crimes in the US and the souring of Australia-China relations have made some Chinese travellers rethink their long-haul travel plans. Source: AAP
Adrian Li, a 26-year-old finance worker in Shenzhen, admits he has limited knowledge of Australia but believes visiting would be an unfriendly experience.
“China’s current relations with Australia have an influence on where I go on holidays. I’d worry about my personal safety if I chose Australia,” he says.
Trade Minister Dan Tehan says he’s confident Australia will remain attractive to Chinese tourists.
“Australia is one of the safest destinations in the world with an abundance of unrivalled natural attractions and the highest quality food and wine, so we will continue to be a destination of choice,” he says.
When contacted by SBS Chinese, Tourism Australia could not reveal how much campaign money was dedicated to the Chinese market, except to say its marketing spend reflected the largest and most significant market prior to the pandemic.
Tourism recovery will rely on the approval of China’s Covid vaccines
Inbound tourism will hinge on the approval of China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, according to the head of the tourism and transport forum Margy Osmond.
She told a parliamentary committee on September 6 that the government needed to recognise vaccines from Australia’s largest inbound markets as the world begins to live with Covid-19 as an endemic disease.
“Our biggest market up until now has been China, so are we going to recognise Sinovac?” Ms Osmond asked.
The Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have been widely accepted by EU countries, but they have not yet been given the green light in Australia.
Tourism recovery hinges on recognising China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines. Source: Chinatopix/AAP
About 80 countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Chile and Singapore have used Sinovac to varying degrees.
The Australian Department of Health told SBS Chinese “work is underway to support the recognition of vaccines which people have received overseas,” but did not disclose if it was working specifically on approving China’s vaccines.
But questions have been raised about its efficacy against the Delta variant.
Officials insist the vaccine works but no research into China’s jabs efficacy has been peer-reviewed or published in international journals to date.
Australian tourism operators already looking to other markets
Bridestowe Lavender Estate in Tasmania, the world’s largest privately-owned lavender farm, had been enjoying swathes of visitors, particularly from mainland China before the pandemic hit. 
Tourists would flock to the purple fields for striking photo opportunities.
Bridestowe Lavender Estate's core business came from mainland China but that has been changing due to rising diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Source: Bridestowe Lavender Estate
Managing director Robert Ravens says they were early adopters in the process of talking to China and it has paid off handsomely.
A visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 was a pivotal moment for Mr Raven who purchased the property as a retirement project in 2007 when it was on the brink of collapse.
“It started to deflate not long after the visit because I think the momentum was unsustainable,” he says.
“The enthusiasm was contagious and the numbers of tourists including Chinese visiting Tasmania was absolutely phenomenal.”
Mr Ravens says that tourism numbers from mainland China have dropped since then, not only because of the pandemic but because of current diplomatic tensions.
“There's a very distinct feeling that China will not return. Chinese tourists will not be allowed to return in the numbers that they historically did,” says Mr Ravens.
As a result of the shifting interest from China, Mr Ravens is now focusing on Japan, South Korea, Indonesia as well as the Indian subcontinent that will “potentially supplement, if not replace China as a force”.
Tourism operators say tourists from mainland China dropped not long after Chinese president Xi Jinping's visit to Australia in 2014. Source: AAP
“You can’t be entirely reliant on the one tourism group.”
Thriving tourism hotspot reminiscent of ‘ghost town’ days
When bus and carloads of Chinese tourists began arriving in the sleepy Victorian town of Sea Lake, locals were forced to embrace them and transform the "ghost town", defined by its grain harvest, into an international tourism hot spot.
Pictures posted in 2014 on social media app WeChat of people "walking on clouds" as a result of the dramatic reflective surface of a nearby salt lake sent the internet space in China into a frenzy.
“The Asian market like the pink salt and the big open wide spaces,” says Julie Pringle, the local tour guide who was responsible for the photos of Lake Tyrrell that went viral. 
Within five years, new accommodation was built, houses became Airbnb rentals, art galleries opened and infrastructure such as a visitor centre, toilet and parking facilities were put in at the lake to accommodate as many as 1000 tourists daily who had travelled for hours, if not days, to capture the moment of magic.
Lake Tyrrell in regional Victoria became an global tourism hotspot overnight when photos went viral on Chinese social media. Source: Viet Tran
Then Covid hit and now all of it is sitting vacant.
With Chinese tourists unlikely to come back anytime soon, Ms Pringle says local tourism operators are now considering campaigns targeted at other markets.
She says investors that saw the opportunity to invest in the isolated town have now walked away having lost money.
“Some of them have gone broke. Some of them have put their life earnings into these businesses. They were open for a week then they had to shut their doors,” she adds.
Bus and carloads of tourists parked by Lake Tyrrell astonished locals in the once sleepy 'ghost town'. Source: Supplied
Investors suffer financial loss after seeing Chinese influx as ‘cream on a cake’
Melbourne businessman Andrew Stott saw an opportunity to cater for the influx of Chinese tourists by turning the town’s closed-down newsagency into a cafe restaurant.
He bought the building and heavily renovated it.
“I had turned it into a full catering kitchen with woks,” Mr Stott says.
Mr Stott had leased the building to tenants who had been operating the food venue for a year before the pandemic hit.
“I’m just an investor that saw an opportunity, grasped it, ran with it and because of the pandemic got caught,” he says.
Despite Australia’s closed borders, Mr Stott has confidence tourism will eventually return to Mallee town.
“In time it will go back to what it was pre-Covid but they might take a couple of years,” he says.
Investor Andrew Stott has put his building up for sale after being hit by the impacts of Covid. Source: Supplied
A for sale sign now sits prominently on the window of the building located on the main street of Sea Lake.
“There’s an incredible opportunity for somebody to move to a thriving rural town,” he says having lost money on his venture.
“I’ve put the building up for sale for someone in the future but I’m moving on.”
