Local tourism in China doubles its figures during its "golden week"

05-10-22

Local or commuter tourism in China doubled year-on-year in the first days of the "golden week", as the National Day holiday is known, which began on October 1, the official China Daily reported on Monday.

The number of day-trippers taking part in local tours or travelling to surrounding regions increased to nearly double compared to the same holiday in 2021, possibly influenced by a request by Chinese authorities for citizens to limit their travel until the end of October.

The government's aim is to avoid possible resurgence of covid during this time period, which includes the most important holiday week of the year for the domestic tourism sector and the upcoming CCP congress.

According to online travel agencies, the volume of bookings made at lodging houses in the popular mountainous and rural Miyun district of the capital Beijing was three times higher in a year-on-year comparison.

On Saturday, Beijing, Shanghai (east), Chengdu (central), Guangzhou (south) and Chongqing (central) took the top five positions among the cities with the highest number of bookings to visit major local attractions.

"More people travelling locally will help expand the potential for resource growth," said Shen Jiani of the research institute of Trip.com, China's largest online travel agency.

Zhou Weihong of the Springtour agency said in a statement reported by China Daily that organising local tours has become a new growth opportunity for agencies.

A growing local tourism influenced by China's zero tolerance policy against the coronavirus, which for more than two years has included the isolation of all infected people and their close contacts, the closure of borders to tourism and quarantine for all travellers, the limitation of international flights and massive PCR testing campaigns wherever a case is detected.

As a result, China's Ministry of Transport estimated that some 210 million road trips will be made during the holiday, 30 per cent less than the same time last year.

Train travel in the country is also expected to experience a 50 per cent drop, with some 68.5 million passengers between 28 September and 8 October, according to state broadcaster CGTN.

The Asian country has suffered in recent months waves of outbreaks attributed to the omicron variant that have caused record numbers of infections not seen since the beginning of the pandemic in the first half of 2020, which resulted in the total or partial confinement of large cities such as Shanghai (east), Chengdu (centre) and a considerable economic impact.

Chinese health authorities reiterated last month that the strategy is "the most cost-effective and scientific" for the country because it "detects new infections quickly and contains the spread at the lowest cost and as early as possible".

According to official Chinese accounts, since the start of the pandemic, 251,040 people have been infected in the country and 5,226 have died, although the total number of infected excludes asymptomatic people.