Dear Reader,

The CoViD-19 pandemic is still the overarching fact for all tourism development in the world. A few good news can be recorded like the absence of a big increase of cases due the colder winter temperatures on the southern half of our planet, where just the opposite is happening with less common flu cases than normal thanks to the masks and social distancing. The total number of new cases is still rising fast. Between July 1^st and August 15^th the identified cases more than doubled from around 10 to more than 21 million cases, whereas the number of deaths grew much slower by about 50% in the same period. 14.5 million persons recovered, almost triple the number of July 1^st.

Most of the cases are concentrated in a few countries. 175,000 of the 285,000 new cases of August 15^th were reported in the USA, Brazil and India, and if all other American countries, responsible for 95,000 cases that day, are taken out of the statistic as well, the number of new cases per day was down for the rest of the world to less than 20,000.

To keep a balance between damage from the virus and damage to the economy, many destinations are slowly opening their borders to citizens of all or at least of selected countries. Chinese are most importantly able to visit Macau without the need for a quarantine on return from next week for citizens of neighbouring Guangdong province and from September 23^rd for all Mainland Chinese. However, also many countries allow Chinese visitors in, many of them talking to the Chinese authorities about special channels, bubbles or other arrangements which will replace quarantine with intensive testing.

Countries which allow Chinese visitors to enter without the need to go into quarantine on arrival are as of August 17^th): Albania, Bermuda, Brazil, Cyprus, Dominica, Dominican Republic, French Polynesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, Malta, Montenegro, Nepal, Northern Macedonia, Ruanda, Serbia, Seychelles, St. Maarten, St. Vincent, Tanzania, Turkey, UAE, Virgin Islands.

Vietnam is likely to open soon for Chinese guests. If Bali will open up in September or if it will follow the regulations for the rest of Indonesia to stay closed to foreigners until the end of 2020, is still unclear.

As China last week decided to let EU citizens back into China if they have a resident or work permit, the EU should according to their own declaration in July open the border for Chinese from September. China continues to have a few new cases, which are located in border regions far away from the main cities, certainly much less than the European average. Therefore there is no reason to keep the Schengen borders closed for Chinese citizens anymore.

Chinese citizens within the Schengen area can travel since June 15^th in the area, which led to a slightly increased arrival number for EU destinations since that date.

Much more about the development post-virus you can read in our new eBook Welcoming the New Chinese Outbound Tourists. Guest relationships with Chinese visitors in the 2020s. We already got a lot of very positive feedback for the publication, so we hope you will join the readership!

Subscribers of the COTRI WEEKLY (like you) can even get, if wished so, an electronically autographed version of the book!

Best wishes from Prof. Dr. Arlt and the COTRI WEEKLY team!

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