(Poster: Intern Yang Jiaxin)

Immigration authorities across China handled 676,000 exits and entries on Monday, a record high since the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Immigration Administration (NIA) said Tuesday.

Tourism practitioners in Southeast Asia told the People's Daily they welcomed the return of Chinese tourists for the recovery of regional tourism. And experts said that the resumption of outbound tourism would help revitalize the global tourism market while injecting confidence and impetus into the development of the world economy.

NIA statistics showed that Monday's figure jumped 124.2 percent from the average daily entry and exit trips before China downgraded its COVID-19 management on Jan 8 and registered at nearly 37 percent of the pre-COVID-19 level.

(Poster: Intern Yang Jiaxin)

Prompted by the resumption of normal travel with Hong Kong and Macao, the Chinese mainland's land ports with the two regions saw 568,000 entries and exits on Monday, 84 percent of the daily total and a 39.2 percent increase from the previous day.

On Monday China resumed outbound group travel to 20 countries including Thailand, the Maldives, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and New Zealand.

Group tours also resumed between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and Macao .

Chinese airlines resume outbound tourist flights

China Southern Airlines will resume and open 48 round-trip routes to 12 destinations. As of Monday, the airline operated 50 international and regional routes, with a weekly flight total of 82.

China Southern Airlines cooperated with travel agencies to launch tour groups to destinations such as New Zealand, the Philippines and Cambodia, focused particularly on routes to Southeast Asian countries.

(Poster: Intern Yang Jiaxin)

China Eastern Airlines' international and regional flights are scheduled to return to 60, up to 410 flights per week as of February 28. The resumed routes will mainly be to Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Spring Airlines has said it will resume 24 international and regional routes including 16 in Southeast Asia.

Since Chinese New Year, Spring Airlines passenger load factor, an airline industry metric that measures how much of an airline's passenger carrying capacity is used, averaged more than 90 percent on its international and regional flights including 100 percent on several flights.

Juneyao Airlines plans to implement more than 110 international and regional flights per week, with an average of nearly 20,000 outbound passengers per week. The focus is flights to Thailand, Finland, Japan and China's Macao.

Juneyao Airlines plans to receive 10 new passenger planes this year, including 8 Airbus neo series passenger planes and 2 Boeing 787 Dreamliners, to prepare for the recovery of the civil aviation industry.

Tourism-dependent economies welcome 'old friends'

Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates on Monday welcomed the first tour groups from China in three years.

Waiting for her group from Guangzhou on Tuesday, Naruepak Orprayoon, a Thai tour guide, told the People's Daily the Thai people welcome Chinese tourists and hope they can drive up consumption in Thailand.

"Thais usually wear masks as the main measure to prevent COVID-19," Naruepak said. "We have no concerns about Chinese tourists."

Chinese tourists used to account for about a quarter of all arrivals to Thailand, which aims to receive 7 million Chinese tourists this year.

Zhao Heng, managing director of Sino Elite (Singapore), told the People's Daily that the return of Chinese tourists would play a decisive role in the recovery of Singapore's tourism industry.

The company was in contact with Chinese partners, he said, and their first batch of tourists would travel to Singapore in the near future.

To welcome the Chinese tourists, the company was coordinating hotels and vehicles.

"We hope Chinese tourists will have a high-quality travel experience in Singapore under the premise of safety and health," Zhao said. His company was also preparing videos to introduce Singapore's epidemic prevention policies to Chinese guests.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, China was the world's biggest outbound travel market with 155 million outbound tourist trips in 2019.

China's total expenditure on outbound tourism hit US$277 billion in 2018, according to the World Tourism Organization.

"China's resumption of outbound tourism will help revitalize the global tourism market and drive related employment," Tang Zhimin, director of China ASEAN Studies at the Bangkok-based Panyapiwat Institute of Management told the People's Daily. "The rapid growth of outbound tourism demonstrates the strong vitality of the Chinese economy, and also injects confidence and impetus into the development of the world economy."

(Intern Lyv Jinwei contributed to this story)