On July 14th, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on its website that both offline and online travel agencies can resume their services and offer trans-provincial group tours as well as flight bookings and hotel reservations, except for mid- and high-risk regions. The maximum number of visitors to scenic areas is limited to 50% of the tourist attraction's capacity, up from the previous 30% cap. This will effectively improve the tourism consumption of tourist attractions in neighbouring provinces, greatly restoring the China domestic tourism market. Additionally, the summer vacation will further increase travel demands.
In it’s latest released “2020 Dragon Boat Festival Holiday Tourism Big Data Report” leading international online travel services provider Trip.com Group highlighted the latest positive trends in travel in the China market. According to the report, throughout the first two days of the holiday period, a total of 37.77 million domestic trips were made, generating 9.66 billion RMB (1.379 billion USD) in tourism revenue, exceeding the same figures for the three-day-long April Qingming Festival holiday period. The report also observes an encouraging return in demand for transport and accommodation, with a month-on-month growth of 15% in the hotel sector, and 13% in transportation.
The search demand and booking of air tickets for domestic travel during the Dragon Boat Festival returned to 70% of the same period last year. Railway travel achieved a record high since the Lunar New Year peak travel period, serving 7.53 million passengers on 25 June alone. According to air ticket data from Ctrip and train ticket bookings during the Dragon Boat Festival, Sanya, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou are the four cities with the highest frequency of departures and arrivals.
