Young May Day travellers raise hope for China's tourism

Shanghai

CHINA'S tourism sector showed encouraging signs of recovery over the May Day holiday, with 115 million trips made, many by car and by younger people emerging from weeks of coronavirus lockdown, government data and operators reported.

The five-day holiday from May 1 was an important test for the tourism industry, one of the sectors hardest hit by the coronavirus, which emerged in central China late last year and triggered shutdowns of up to three months to rein it in.

The total of 115 million trips over the holiday was down 41 per cent from the 195 million during the same period last year, said the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

But the figure beat expectations of about 90 million trips and was a hopeful sign, travel operators and authorities said.

Liang Jianzhang, chairman of travel operator Trip.com, told state broadcaster CCTV: "We can see that everyone's confidence is gradually recovering."

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China has tried to encourage domestic tourism in a bid to revive an economy seriously battered by the coronavirus.

The ministry said travel operators earned total revenue of 47.56 billion yuan (S$9.66 billion) over the holiday. It did not give a figure for last year.

Tourists travelling by car accounted for more than 60 per cent of the travel during the holiday, the ministry said. Trip.com said bookings for its car rentals were 10 per cent higher than in the corresponding period last year. More than half the bookings for Trip.com's holiday packages were made by travellers born in 1990 or later, the company said.

Scenic spots such as the Jiuzhaigou National Park as well as the cities of Chengdu and Shanghai were among their top picks.

Overall, Trip.com reported that bookings made on April 29 for air, rail and car transport for the holiday were 130 per cent higher than the total bookings for the week in the run-up to that.

The number of people travelling outside their cities surged nearly 50 per cent at the beginning of the holiday, compared with the Tomb Sweeping holiday on April 4, going by Reuters' calculations based on data from China's internet giant Baidu.

Most tourist attractions have been reopened, though attendance is limited to 30 per cent of capacity in many of them to reduce the risk of coronavirus infections. REUTERS