The tourism industry is expecting a boom in travel and consumption during the National Day holiday that will arrive in two weeks.
Reservations for hotels at destinations that are short trips from Shenzhen are almost fully booked and the price of hotels has increased by 300 percent compared to the prices in previous days, a Shenzhen Special Zone Daily report said yesterday.
The robust travel demand for domestic tours is fueled by this year’s longer holiday as the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Oct. 1, will overlap with the weeklong National Day holiday, giving people an extended holiday of eight days until Oct. 8.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has been mostly subdued within China, interprovincial tourism has resumed, providing an opportunity for domestic tours. Hundreds of tourist attractions in different provinces have introduced attractive packages to draw tourists including coupons and discounts, the report said, quoting the city’s tourism association.
Statistics of Ctrip, an online travel agency, showed tourists during the holiday will mainly travel from the top 10 cities, namely Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing and Xi’an.
During the National Day holiday travel in 2019, independent travelers driving their own or rental cars amounted to 30 percent of the total number of travelers, according to the data of China Tourism Academy. After COVID-19, self-guided driving tours will be more popular
A report released by ly.com, an online travel website, indicated that air tickets and train tickets are becoming hard to get due to the travel demand, especially tickets to popular tourist destinations. Ticket prices have been approaching similar levels at the same period last year.
Since the Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival for family reunions, many workers who have been stuck in the cities they work in for months due to the coronavirus will take the chance to return to their hometowns.
Tickets for holiday travel were snapped up soon after sales began Sept. 2, according to 12306.cn, the railway ticketing website.
The report estimates that the travel peak will start Sept. 30 and the peak for tourist attractions in China will arrive around Oct. 3.