China's tourism sector has recovered to pre-pandemic levels with travelers venturing out during the Lunar New Year holidays after stringent Covid-19 restrictions were removed, industry data showed.
Bookings for hotels, B&B hotels and tourism tickets in the first four days of the Chinese Lunar New Year as of Wednesday have exceeded bookings for the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, said Trip.com, an online travel agency.
Reservations for B&B hotels have more than doubled from the same period a year ago and the number of tourism ticket bookings increased more than 50% from a year earlier, according to Trip.com on Wednesday.
The travel agency also said the government's easing of Covid-19 controls also boosted outbound travel during the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday. The number of outbound air ticket bookings by mainland tourists increased by more than four times compared with a year ago while the number of outbound hotel reservations more than doubled, said Trip.com. Hong Kong and Macau were the top two destinations for mainland travelers, followed by Bangkok, Singapore and Phuket, it said.
Similar data released by Alibaba's travel branch Fliggy Thursday showed hotel reservations in China exceeded the number from the same period in 2019. Domestic long-distance travel orders increased by more than 500% on year while the number of outbound travel product bookings to 33 countries and regions doubled during the first four days of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
China abruptly ended its three-year Covid-zero policy in December, and infections across the country surged in the following weeks. China's Center for Disease Control Wednesday said the Covid-19 infections in the country may have peaked with critically-ill cases down 72% from the peak earlier this month while deaths of Covid-19 patients daily were down 79% from the peak.
As the impact of the pandemic fades, more people went to the movies this year. Box office sales during the first four days of the Chinese Lunar New Year rose 30.4% from the same period a year ago and were 11% higher than the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, according to data from box office tracker Lighthouse.
Domestic travel data released by China's Transportation Ministry showed a large increase from a year earlier during the Lunar New Year holiday period starting from early January but remained below the level recorded before the pandemic in 2019.
The daily number of overall passengers who traveled via roads, railways, by air and waterways stood at 35.3 million on Wednesday, up 73% on year but down 38.2% from 2019 levels, the ministry said Thursday. Chinese authorities expect around 2.1 billion trips to be made during the Lunar New Year period, which lasts about 40 days, up 99.5% from a year ago and recovering to 70.3% of the trips in 2019.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-26-23 0016ET
