What: Global travel is back on track and the trend should be sustained, even though many uncertainties loom.

Why it is important:  China is increasingly becoming a question mark both in terms of date of reopening but also in capability to play the same engine role than in the past.

According to Visa, global travel is recovering fast, with cross-border trips reaching 78% of 2019 levels in May 2020, and long-haul trips reaching 71%. Visa bets that the trend is here to stay, even though some questions remain, due to the inflation impact and uncertainties on when Asia will fully reopen.

China remains the central pivot in finding the answer to this question with its zero-Covid policy, as well as the duration of the Russian war in Ukraine: if China, Russia, Ukraine and HK are excluded from the comparison basis, we are already back to the 2019 levels at the global level, and flows from US to Latin America, Mexico to Europe, UAE to Europe or KSA to Latin America are already exceeding 2019 levels.

Visa also warns that China is becoming an increasingly uncertain asset: due to the ageing of its population, combined with a downshift in economic growth and pressure on asset prices, it is not granted that it could become again the world engine it used to be pre-pandemic, even if it decided to drop the zero-Covid policy in a fortnight.

Global travel is recuperating, but until where and when?