“The winning strategy, in China and beyond,” Bhatt says, is to “treat the solo diner as a premium guest whose time is valuable and whose independence is aspirational. That’s where the culture and the money is already going.”

Cancellations by would-be tourists are already extending through April 2026, according to data from China Trading Desk, a market researcher that specializes in China travel data. “What started as a year-end shock is now bleeding into next year,” said Subramania Bhatt, chief executive of China Trading Desk. “That suggests expectations are in free fall and many travelers are no longer treating this as a short-lived blip.”

China has been able to exert economic pressure on Japan in several different areas, from fisheries to pop culture. “The relationship is drifting away from the old pattern of ‘cold politics, hot economics’ toward something closer to ‘cold politics, cooler economics,’” says Bhatt, adding that Japan may be nudged “further into the orbit of U.S.-led economic and security coalitions.”

Searches by Chinese travellers for trips to Singapore had risen about 15 per cent by November 18, compared with the previous week, said Subramania Bhatt, CEO of the travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk.

Subramania Bhatt, chief executive office of China Trading Desk, told Bloomberg that Japan could lose out on as much as $1.2 billion in visitor spending between now and the end of the year as would-be travelers from China cancel their trips. He added that if Chinese visitors continue to stay away till 2026, the cumulative hit could reach as much as $9 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Officials said the strategy aligns with research from China Trading Desk, a marketing and research firm specializing in Chinese consumers, which has found that Chinese outbound travelers rely heavily on social media for inspiration and trustworthy travel advice.

Over 30% of expected China–Japan trips between mid-Nov and year-end have been cancelled. Around 70% of the hit is from active cancellations/date changes; the rest is a collapse in new bookings. Estimate Chinese spending in Japan could fall by $0.5–1.2B over this period – with hundreds of millions in luxury purchases simply not happening Crucially, demand isn’t disappearing – it’s being re-routed to destinations like Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

According to Singapore-based travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk, cancellations and rebookings indicated that departures to Japan over the next few weeks were down by more than 30 per cent compared with last week. And the impact was said to be concentrated in bookings before January.

We present the latest highlights from China Trading Desk’s Outbound Travel Survey with a focus on Middle East-bound Chinese travellers.