Coronavirus: Chinese tourists, gripped by pandemic fears, scale back domestic travel plans for holidays
- Plane tickets are nearly 20 per cent cheaper than the last New Year-Lunar New Year season as many Chinese indicate they’ll stay closer to home
- Authorities in several cities advise residents not to leave the city ‘unless necessary’, or even stay indoors
Millions of domestic tourists travel in the week before and after January 1 in a typical year.
Although, by December 24. hotel bookings for the upcoming three-day New Year weekend had reached 1.8 times the number of bookings a year earlier, plane tickets were nearly 20 per cent cheaper on average, with many people not travelling far, Beijing-based online travel platform Qunar.com said.
“The trend is taking a train to visit cities within the reach of one hour,” the company said.
The hottest train tickets are for trips between the southwestern cities of Chengdu and Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in southern Guangdong province, and Shanghai and Hangzhou, according to Qunar.com.
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Huang Li said she decided against going to Sanya, on the southern island of Hainan, after the government told people to avoid unnecessary travel.
“I’m not sure if my son would be allowed to attend classes in his kindergarten if we leave Beijing,” said Huang, 40. “Too many uncertainties. We might be asked to do nucleic acid tests.”
The Chinese capital has cancelled large-scale events, including the 2021 Beijing Book Fair, and ordered travel agencies not to sell packages for the city during the New Year and Lunar New Year holiday.
Many other cities have followed suit.
Shenzhen and Dalian have told residents not to leave “unless necessary”, while businesses have been ordered not to organise gatherings.
In central Hubei province, where the first outbreak was reported, locals were told to stay indoors and cap family gatherings at 10 people.
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Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager at Spring Tour, the travel arm of Shanghai-based Spring Group, said her agency had rolled out new offerings aimed at local tourism.
“Around Shanghai, there are many splendid things people can do, and there are great hotels and hot springs,” Zhou said.
Not all travellers are about to cancel trips to faraway destinations.
Beijing resident Cai Dong, 34, and his wife are flying to Sanya this week.
“It isn’t worth ruining my planned holiday just because of a handful of cases,” Cai said.
