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ETOA is expanding its China tourism push into Chengdu in 2027, betting that the recovery and transformation of Chinese outbound travel represents a major opportunity for Europe. The move comes as Chinese travelers are returning internationally after the dramatic collapse of the pandemic years, but not necessarily to the same destinations, in the same numbers, or with the same travel habits as before.
eTurboNews Opinion: Europe is positioning itself to capture more of this returning business. ETOA – European Tourism Association is expanding its Showcase: Outbound China 2027 from Beijing and Shanghai to Chengdu, taking European tourism suppliers directly to buyers in western China.
For the United States, this should be a wake-up call.
China was once one of the USA’s most valuable international visitor markets. Today, the Chinese outbound market is recovering while U.S.–China geopolitical tensions, air connectivity, visa issues and perceptions of welcome complicate the American tourism industry’s ability to regain its former share.
The question is no longer whether Chinese outbound tourism will recover.
The question is whether Europe will capture business the United States is failing to win back.It is where they will go — and who is making the effort to get them.
Europe is knocking on China’s door
This is what makes the latest move by ETOA – European Tourism Association particularly interesting.
ETOA has announced an expanded Showcase: Outbound China 2027, taking European tourism businesses directly into Beijing, Shanghai and, for the first time, Chengdu.
The official 2027 program starts in Beijing on May 19, moves to Chengdu on May 21 and concludes its workshop program in Shanghai on May 24, immediately before ITB China from May 25-27. ETOA describes it as a three-city roadshow bringing European suppliers and destinations together with vetted Chinese tour operators and travel buyers through pre-arranged B2B meetings.
The addition of Chengdu deserves more attention than it may initially receive.
Beijing and Shanghai are obvious international gateways. Chengdu represents something else: an acknowledgment that the Chinese outbound market cannot simply be understood through China’s two most internationally visible cities.
China is a continent-sized market with enormous regional differences in wealth, distribution, consumer behavior and travel experience.
Going to Chengdu effectively says: Europe wants to go deeper.
That is smart tourism diplomacy.
ETOA’s 2026 participants represented 16 European markets, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Suppliers ranged from hotels and attractions to rail, cruise, DMCs, destinations, tour operators and retailers.
The 2027 program goes further by educating European sellers about the changing Chinese traveler. Planned sessions address the new Chinese luxury traveler, group versus FIT business, MICE, pricing Europe correctly, and even understanding the visa journey.
This isn’t merely selling Europe. It is Europe learning how to sell itself to the new China.
The Chinese tourist has changed
Anyone waiting for Chinese tourism simply to return to its 2019 configuration may be waiting for something that no longer exists. The market has matured.
The stereotypical image of large Chinese groups racing between European capitals, photographing landmarks and filling shopping bags with luxury goods was always an oversimplification. Today it is even less useful.
There is still group business, and it remains important. But there are also increasingly experienced independent travelers, younger travelers, luxury customers, families, students, business travelers, MICE groups and repeat visitors looking beyond Europe’s most famous gateways.
That helps explain why ETOA is investing in market education alongside contracting.
The European Travel Commission had already detected a powerful signal in 2025. Its long-haul research found that 72% of surveyed Chinese travelers intending a long-haul trip planned to visit Europe that summer, up ten percentage points year-on-year.
Europe clearly has something China wants.
History. Shopping. Food. Culture. Luxury. Football. Fashion. Rail travel. Small cities. Famous cities. Multiple countries within one holiday.
And, importantly, Europe is showing up in China to sell it.
Then look across the Atlantic
This is where the comparison with the United States becomes uncomfortable. America should be one of the natural winners of China’s outbound recovery.
The United States has extraordinary tourism assets: California, Hawaii, New York, Florida, Las Vegas, national parks, universities, entertainment, shopping and some of the world’s strongest consumer brands.
Chinese visitors have also historically been extraordinarily valuable.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, China was the largest source market for U.S. travel-export dollars during 2015-2019, accounting for 13.6% of American travel exports. Chinese visitation collapsed during the pandemic and reached only about 1.1 million in 2023 — just 38% of the 2019 level — although those visitors still generated almost $21 billion in spending according to Commerce Department figures.
That should make rebuilding China a major American tourism priority.
Yet the wider U.S. inbound picture has itself become more complicated. Revised U.S. government forecasts now put total international visitation at 68.3 million in 2025 and project 70.5 million for 2026, before rising toward 85.2 million by 2030.
Chinese travelers certainly have not disappeared from America. In the third quarter of 2025, China was still among the five largest overseas source markets for U.S. inbound air travel, producing 491,000 visitors during that quarter.
But recovery and potential are two very different things. The question America should be asking is whether it is competing hard enough for this customer.
Tourism cannot escape geopolitics
Tourism officials sometimes prefer not to discuss an uncomfortable reality. Travel decisions are influenced by politics.
Not necessarily because travelers sit at home studying foreign policy papers before booking a vacation, but because geopolitics filters into aviation, visas, media coverage, government warnings, business confidence, and ultimately the perception of whether a destination feels welcoming.
The political relationship between Washington and Beijing remains deeply complicated, spanning trade, technology, security and strategic competition.
Even on October 6, the same day this article is being written, U.S.–China relations remain framed by strategic-security discussions at the highest levels. Reuters reported that Washington and Beijing have been discussing possible reciprocal visits to nuclear facilities — an extraordinary reminder of how tourism between the two countries exists inside a relationship dominated by much larger geopolitical questions.
That does not mean Chinese tourists will stop traveling to America. It means the tourism industry cannot assume they will come simply because America is America.
- Destinations compete.
- Perceptions compete.
- Airlines compete.
- Visa systems compete.
- And increasingly, welcome competes.
Europe has geopolitical disagreements with China too
Europe should not be romanticized in this comparison.
The European Union has serious disagreements with Beijing over trade, security, human rights and other strategic issues.
Chinese citizens also generally require a Schengen visa for tourism. The European Union has been actively communicating in China about the application process, including how Chinese travelers can use a Schengen visa to visit multiple participating European countries.
So Europe has hardly thrown its borders open.
What Europe appears increasingly willing to do, however, is separate legitimate political disagreements from the commercial reality that Chinese visitors are valuable customers.
That distinction matters. Tourism has always functioned best when governments disagree, but people continue meeting. Perhaps that is precisely why tourism matters most during politically difficult periods.
China itself understands the value of removing friction
There is another irony here.
While Western countries debate their relationship with China, Beijing has been aggressively reducing barriers for many inbound visitors.
China extended unilateral visa-free entry through the end of 2026 for ordinary passport holders from numerous European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Denmark, Croatia, Malta and others, allowing qualifying visits of up to 30 days.
China understands that visas are not merely immigration instruments. They can also be economic instruments. And tourism is not merely recreation.
It is trade.
The U.S. should watch what ETOA is doing
ETOA’s China initiative is interesting precisely because it is not spectacular.
- There is no billion-dollar announcement.
- No giant political summit.
- No declaration about a new world tourism order.
- There are workshops.
- Appointments.
- Chinese buyers.
- European sellers.
- Market intelligence.
- Relationships.
- And Chengdu.
That is how tourism markets are often built.
One handshake, one contract, one tour program and one relationship at a time.
ETOA CEO Tom Jenkins says Chinese buyers continue to attach considerable value to face-to-face meetings and that expanding into Chengdu gives European participants access to a different network of buyers. That sounds simple.
It is also strategically important. While governments talk about China at the geopolitical level, ETOA is talking to China at the commercial level. There is a difference.
The United States may be leaving money on the table
The United States has every opportunity to compete.
It has the product. It has global brand recognition. It has Chinese communities, educational connections, commercial relationships and attractions that Chinese travelers know extremely well.
But tourism markets cannot be taken for granted.
If Europe spends the next several years rebuilding distribution networks, training suppliers, cultivating Chinese travel agents, visiting second-tier markets and making Chinese travelers feel actively wanted, while America’s China relationship continues to be communicated primarily through the language of strategic confrontation, the commercial consequences should surprise nobody.
- Chinese travelers will still travel.
- Their money will still be spent.
- Their holidays will still be taken.
- The question is where.
The bigger lesson for global tourism
There is also a warning for Europe.
Chinese outbound tourism has already demonstrated how dangerous overdependence can be. The pandemic showed destinations what happens when an enormous source market disappears almost overnight.
Europe should therefore pursue China aggressively without becoming dependent on China.
The correct strategy is diversification: China, the United States, India, the Gulf, Southeast Asia, Latin America and strong intra-European tourism.
But diversification does not mean ignoring the biggest opportunities. China is one of them. And ETOA appears to understand this.
Its 2027 China roadshow is not proof that European tourism has conquered the Chinese market. Far from it. Chinese outbound travel continues to evolve, economic conditions inside China remain important, visa friction remains, airline capacity matters and geopolitical shocks can change travel sentiment rapidly.
But Europe is putting people on airplanes and sending them to Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai to find out what Chinese buyers actually want.
That is more than market optimism. It is market engagement.
Tourism may accomplish what politics cannot
Perhaps there is a larger message hidden inside ETOA’s relatively modest announcement. When political relationships become difficult, tourism can either become another casualty of geopolitics or one of the remaining bridges between societies.
Europe appears increasingly interested in keeping that bridge open. The United States should consider carefully whether it wants to do the same. China’s outbound tourism market has been up, down and nearly switched off. It is now rebuilding in a different form.
The winners will not necessarily be the destinations that Chinese travelers loved most in 2019. They may be the destinations that make the strongest effort to understand and welcome them in 2027.
ETOA has apparently decided that Europe should be one of those winners.
The question is whether the U.S. is paying attention.
This article represents eTurboNews editorial analysis and opinion. Statistics and program details cited are based on official Chinese government data, U.S. Department of Commerce/NTTO information, European Union sources, European Travel Commission research, and ETOA program information available as of October 6, 2026.
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