When the first Chinese tourists landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport this month, they were greeted like celebrities with banners, flowers, gifts and swarms of reporters and photographers.

Hotels, airlines, tour operators and government officials have long awaited this moment – China reopening its borders after nearly three years of pandemic restrictions essentially cut the world off from Chinese tourists, once the largest source of global tourism revenue.

“It’s very exciting to be somewhere warm and beautiful again,” said Liu Hua, a 34-year-old graphic designer from Shanghai. She was one of the first tourists to come to Thailand, spending a two-week beach vacation in the country later this month as part of a Spring Festival trip. “I want to make up for lost time,” she said in a telephone interview. Her plan: “Stay in good hotels, book spa treatments, dine at fine restaurants and buy nice gifts for myself and my family.”

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization and the China Tourism AcademyA studyBefore the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed international travel in 2020, China sent more tourists overseas than any other market, with about 150 million Chinese tourists spending $277 billion abroad in 2018. That outflow stopped in 2020, and even as countries around the world eased travel restrictions last year, China still imposed an international travel ban on its citizens as part of its “zero-COVID” policy.

However, the Chinese government opened its borders on January 8, allowing foreign tourists to enter and Chinese residents to leave the country.CtripAccording to data from Travelocity.com, search interest in flights out of mainland China increased 83% between December 26 and January 5, and international flight bookings increased 59% in the same period, with some in the travel industry predicting an influx of Chinese tourists.

However, while nearby destinations such as Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore have seen a boost in tourism, more distant destinations are still waiting. In addition to the high number of COVID-19 cases within China, Chinese tourists are facing long passport and visa delays, high international flight prices and a lack of capacity as many airlines cut flights during China’s long lockdown.VisitBritainData from the International Monetary Fund showed that as of Friday, the number of seats on direct flights from China to the UK in January was about 8% of what it was in 2019. The first direct flight from China to Switzerland, originally scheduled for January 26, was canceled due to a lack of passengers.

Before the pandemic, as many as 700 Chinese tourists a day flocked to Mae Taeng Elephant Park in the low hills of northern Thailand, about an hour’s drive north of Chiang Mai.

Park manager Poplit Chailuk is eagerly awaiting their return but says only about 40 Chinese tourists have come so far.

Chaile said he currently has 76 elephants, and when Chinese tourists do come, it will not be difficult to rent elephants from nearby villagers to supplement his herd. But he said the difficulty is not knowing when to add more staff and where to find people, because many people left the scenic area and changed jobs after the tourism industry stopped.

“If you want to hire 100 people today, you can’t do it because it’s so uncertain,” he said. “I don’t know, maybe in the next two months, the Chinese government will say, ‘We’re going to close the country again.’ ”

With an economy heavily reliant on tourism, Thailand has lost tens of billions of dollars in spending from Chinese tourists over the past three years. The Chiang Mai Tourism Board estimates that the city, known for its stunning Buddhist temples and heavy reliance on tourism, will welcome about 600,000 Chinese visitors this year who will spend about $230 million — about half the total for 2019.

Thai tourism industry insiders say the true numbers won’t start to emerge until the second quarter. Many Chinese tourists traditionally travel in groups (they account for about half of Chinese visitors to Chiang Mai), and the Chinese government will not allow travel agencies to resume outbound group tours until February 6, and only on a trial basis in 20 countries, including Thailand. For now, only Chinese independent travelers who can afford the expensive airfare are traveling.

But not everyone has welcomed the return of group tours with open arms. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, tourism operators in Thailand and China had seen a reversal in the trend toward group tours, with a growing number of tech-savvy Chinese tourists using booking and experience apps to travel independently.

While the overall number of Chinese tourists has increased over the past decade, group tours have gradually declined in Phuket, a 50km-long island on Thailand’s west coast, amid a crackdown on so-called “zero-dollar tours”. These tour groups, which often operate illegally to evade taxes, are usually controlled by Chinese investors who own buses, hotels, restaurants, spas and gift shops, siphoning tourists’ spending from local tourism operators. They are known for forcing tourists to buy overpriced souvenirs in shops they control.

“I don’t think there will be more large tour groups,” said Nanthida Atiset, a Phuket hotel owner and vice president of the Phuket Tourism Association. “Of course, I think they will come back. The question now is at what scale.”

Another popular destination for Chinese tourists is London, where Chinatown held its first Chinese New Year celebration since the pandemic last week, with more than 300,000 people attending, but few Chinese tourists were present.

Feng Yang, manager of the Da Hu Ren Jia Chinese restaurant in central London, said he did not expect to receive tourists from China during the Spring Festival, but hoped they would return in the coming months. “They are still affected by the coronavirus,” said Feng Yang, adding that his business was largely unaffected because about 85% of his customers were Chinese students from nearby universities who did not return home for the Lunar New Year.

There are many reasons for the slow growth. “There aren’t as many flights, prices tend to be more expensive and people need visas to come here,” said Patricia Yates, chief executive of VisitBritain, adding that the return of Chinese tourists to Britain this year will be a “slow process” but that higher figures are expected in 2024. Round-trip flights from China to London currently cost about $1,300, and Ms. Yates expects that by June, the number of passengers on flights from China to London will grow to only 30% of 2019 capacity. “There’s a real need to encourage people to get on planes,” she said.

Before the pandemic, China was Australia’s largest tourist spending market. In 2019, Australia received 1.4 million Chinese tourists, with a total spending of A$12.4 billion.

Although Chinese tourists have begun to return to Australia to visit relatives and friends, travel agencies do not expect many individual tourists to arrive in the coming months due to expensive airfares and the fact that Australia is not among the group travel destinations approved by China. Australia also requires Chinese tourists to be tested for the new coronavirus. This month, round-trip airfares between China and Australia range from $1,800 to $3,000. Shen Xuhui, owner of Melbourne Great Wall Travel Agency, said that before the epidemic, Chinese tourists were known for their generosity. “Chinese tourists will say, ‘I don’t want to take a boat, I want to take a helicopter,'” he said. “It may be a 10-minute trip, and they have to pay an extremely expensive 400 Australian dollars, but Chinese tourists will say, ‘I want to take this, I don’t want to take a boat because I may get seasick.'”

While many travel agencies are eager for their return, some worry that the tourism industry may not be able to keep up with the new wave of tourists.

“The industry disappeared for two years; it’s going to be very difficult to recover,” said Rick Liu, owner of Melbourne’s Tantan Holidays travel agency, adding that many drivers and guides had changed jobs during the tourism shutdown and it might be difficult to rehire them.

“I am happy to see more tourists, but I am also a little worried about whether we can accommodate them and provide good quality services,” he added. “We are all a little rusty.”