Chinese tourists are increasingly turning away from traditional destinations such as the United States and Europe in favour of hotspots in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America, according to foreign exchange firm Travelex.
The company has seen a marked shift in the currency exchanges requested by its Chinese customers since 2019, with US dollars, euros and British pounds becoming less popular, an executive at the company told the Post.
“The US overall probably was about 27 per cent of our volume in 2019,” said Cameron Hume, global wholesale director at Travelex in Shanghai. “It’s now about 17 per cent.”
The trend is being driven by a shift in Chinese tourists’ travel preferences, which has in turn been fuelled by policy changes implemented by Beijing, Hume suggested.
Exchanges of US dollars have “gone down quite a lot comparatively”, Hume said, especially considering that Chinese travellers not only use US dollars in the United States, but also in other countries such as Cambodia and Laos.
Chinese tourists also appear to be losing interest in the United Kingdom and Europe. Exchanges involving British pounds and euros made up 12 per cent of Travelex China’s business in 2019, but that fell to about 7 per cent last year, according to company data.
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