Dhaka, Jan. 20 -- As Chinese shoppers trickle back to tourist hotspots for Lunar New Year holidays, malls from Macau to Bangkok aim to lure them into stores with red lantern displays, special dances to mark the Year of the Rabbit - and discounts, Reuters reports. The overall number of international flights from China is still just 12 per cent of pre-pandemic levels due to slow capacity increases. But retailers in popular Asian destinations are desperate to take advantage of the return of a first wave of Chinese tourists as the country reopens borders after three long years of COVID-19 curbs.

That's because Chinese customers have been a much-missed mainstay of the world's retail and travel industry: Their spending on travel had grown to $...