After recovering from Covid-19 eight days ago, Shanghai software engineer Liu Ton immediately booked himself a holiday on an island in neighbouring Zhejiang province. “I want to go to Dongji island to see the first sunshine of the new year”, said the 26-year-old, who caught Omicron while travelling earlier this month. Liu also plans to travel overseas next year now that China has announced its borders will reopen on January 8. “It’s going to be a revenge trip abroad,” he said. Following China’s sudden pivot away from zero-Covid earlier this month, businesses in the travel sector are seeing a recovery in bookings and flights, even as infections surge. Chinese are flying again, just not overseas – and that keeps their money in China Dine-in food orders in Beijing were up 218 per cent week on week on Monday, while one of the city’s most famous tourist attractions, Universal Resort, saw a 120 per cent increase in bookings over a seven day period, according to Chinese internet platform Meituan. Passenger traffic on the Beijing metro is also gradually picking up. Passenger numbers nearly doubled from the previous week to 4.6 million trips on Tuesday. The number was more than five times that of December 17, which was the lowest day for traffic reported in December, according to the municipal subway operator. Beijing Capital Airport said it expected 16,800 outbound passengers to depart on Wednesday – the highest number in the past three months. “Domestic flights have recovered in recent weeks, which are estimated to be at 60 to 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels,” said a Beijing-based manager with a state-owned airline who did not want to be named. “Flights to the popular tourist regions such as Sanya in Hanna also showed high occupancy.” With the pandemic still raging in the country, we believe the ceiling for recovery still remains limited Topsperity Securities Air travel is expected to return to 2019 levels in the first half of 2023, and increased mobility in northern Chinese cities that were hit first by the pandemic suggests the recovery has begun, according to Topsperity Securities. “However, we shouldn’t be too optimistic about the short-term recovery of mobility at this time; with the pandemic still raging in the country, we believe the ceiling for recovery still remains limited and it will not return to the same level of last year in the short term,” the brokerage said last week. Li Xing, a 27-year-old Beijing freelancer, is also eager to travel after recovering from Covid-19, and is planning to tour Tibet by car next month. “Due to the previous Covid controls, all I could do was stay in Beijing, playing football and dining,” he said. Some 64 per cent of New Year’s Day bookings on Chinese travel website Tuniu were for trips close to home, with more than 70 per cent of interprovincial travellers heading to Hainan and Yunnan, according to a report released on Tuesday by the firm. While there are signs of an initial recovery in consumption, that is likely to be interrupted by the coming Lunar New Year holiday because travel for family reunions is likely to spread the virus. Larry Hu, chief China economist with Macquarie Group, said a second pandemic wave over Lunar New Year would put more pressure on China’s economic recovery. “Consumption in Beijing started to pick up after the first hit of the pandemic,” Hu said. “But the country’s economy is still facing a lot of pressure in the first quarter of next year and we believe it will only start to show more visible signs of recovery in the second quarter.” The pandemic’s impact in the fourth quarter is likely to result in zero or even negative social retail sales figures for China this year, according to Hu, though that will bounce back to 8 per cent year-on-year growth in 2023.