Before Covid, Malaysia’s luxury mall beneath Kuala Lumpur’s iconic Petronas Towers echoed with the sound of Chinese tourists and their dialects. But recently, during a busy dinner hour, they were missing. Din, the mall’s outlet of famous Taiwanese chain Din Tai Fung, a favorite of Chinese tourists, was half-full with local Malaysians and Middle Eastern customers. When I asked a cashier whether they had served many Chinese lately, she shook her head with a tight smile.
China was once the world’s most plentiful source of international tourists, and Southeast Asia was among their top destinations. The buildup happened quickly. In the 2000s, affluence, a growing surplus of leisure time and a relaxation of government travel restrictions made tourism available to China’s rapidly expanding middle class. From 2009 to 2019, the number of travelers grew…
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