Chinese Travelers’ Safety Perceptions for Outbound Destinations

Dragon Trail’s consumer research shows that when planning a trip, safety is the key factor that Chinese outbound travelers care about most. Looking at the last four years of our Chinese Traveler Sentiment Surveys reveals a lot about how mainland Chinese perceptions about the safety of global travel destinations have evolved from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to China’s reopening and tourism recovery.

Generally speaking, safety perceptions continue to improve for almost all destinations. At the same time, survey respondent interest in traveling to different regions has also been growing steadily for nearly every part of the world. Since China reopened for non-essential outbound travel at the start of 2023, intentions to travel outbound have grown consistently. All of this points to a greater openness to and level of comfort with the world outside of mainland China, as the fears and restrictions of the pandemic era fade away.

Read our latest Chinese Traveler Sentiment Report, published in April 2025

To illustrate the trends and compare how sentiment has evolved differently among leading outbound travel destinations, we’ve compiled all the data for safety ratings for seven different countries, across eight Chinese Traveler Sentiment Surveys, spanning March 2021-March 2025.

Japan, Australia, UK, and France: The Great Shift

Let’s start with four very different countries that all follow a similar pattern, which says a lot about how Chinese travelers have been thinking about traveling abroad in general. On these graphs, the blue lines are the percentage of respondents who said the destination was safe, the red lines are those who said it was unsafe, and the grey lines are for unsure – which was an option starting from the September 2021 survey.

All four destinations were seen as highly unsafe, and with very low “safe” rankings, during China’s zero-COVID era. Then something changes very significantly between December 2022 and September 2023. What happened at that time, was that China reopened for non-essential travel starting in January 2023, with outbound group travel and flight capacity all coming back gradually in the months that followed – and at the same time, the red line comes down and the blue line comes up for each of these countries. The safety ratings have stayed fairly consistent and improved slightly for each of the four countries since then.

Next, let’s look at three countries that have not quite followed that same pattern.

Singapore: A Leader for Safety

Singapore stands out for almost always being perceived by Chinese travelers as safe – or at least more safe than unsafe. Singapore’s “unsafe” rating peaked at 30% in September 2021, and has been in the single digits for the last four surveys. This excellent safety rating is definitely one factor behind Singapore’s post-pandemic popularity among Chinese travelers.

Thailand: Volatile and Getting Worse

Thailand is still a leading outbound destination for Chinese tourists, but it has been recovering much more slowly than competitors like Singapore, Malaysia, or Japan. Here, we never see a point at which the blue and red lines cross, and Thailand is actually perceived as more “unsafe” now that it was during the peak pandemic years, because this perception is related to crime rather than public health. Thailand’s rating in our most recent spring 2025 survey is actually one of its worst scores ever, following the rescue in Thailand of Chinese actor Wang Xing, who had been kidnapped by a human trafficking gang in January 2025.

United States: An Uncertain Future

The United States has seen the highest “unsafe” ratings of any country in our survey, with a high of 87% unsafe in September 2021. It’s taken longer than for other destinations, but that rating has been steadily improving, and this survey is the first time where the blue “safe” line has crossed the red “unsafe” line – 35% of survey respondents said it was safe to travel to the US, with just 26% saying it was unsafe, although 39% said they were unsure. However, this survey was conducted a few weeks before the most recent tariffs were announced by US President Trump, which has increased tensions between China and US. On 9 April 2025, the Chinese government issued an official safety warning for citizens planning to visit or study in the US. We will continue to monito how perceptions of travel to the US continue to evolve in future surveys.

For more data and discussion of Chinese travelers’ safety perceptions and other attitudes and plans surrounding outbound travel, check out Dragon Trail’s Chinese Traveler Sentiment Reports. Please contact us to request further information and learn how our bespoke research services can help you achieve your marketing and sales goals for China.