© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The first group of Chinese tourists arrive at Ngurah Rai International Airport after the Chinese government resumed citizen travel to Bali, Indonesia, January 22, 2023. Antara Photo/Fikri Yusuf/via REUTERS
BEIJING (Reuters) – Almost a quarter more domestic Chinese tourist trips were made during this year’s Lunar New Year holiday, while cross-border trips more than doubled in the first six days of the week-long break after the end of the severe COVID-19 pandemic. 19 curbs.
A total of 308 million tourist trips within China were made during the current holiday period, up 23.1% from the Lunar New Year 2022 and marking a recovery to 88.6% of the number in 2019, data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Friday .
In December, China began lifting its strict zero-tolerance measures against COVID after nearly three years of intermittent city-wide lockdowns, slower economic growth and disruptions to the tourism and hospitality sectors.
Revenue from domestic tourism during this year’s holidays totaled 375.84 billion yuan ($55.41 billion), or 73.1% over 2019, according to data from the tourism ministry.
From January 21 to January 26, the first six days of the holiday, a total of 2.39 million trips were made to and from China, an increase of 123.9% compared to the period from January 31 to February 5 last year, National the Immigration Administration (NIA) agency announced on Friday, citing data on trips by different means of transport.
In early January, authorities lifted the requirement that arriving travelers must undergo hotel quarantine upon arrival, a policy that has crippled international travel.
Despite the jump, international holiday travel has not yet returned to pre-Covid levels.
A total of 12.53 million cross-border trips were made during the 2019 Lunar New Year holiday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Data from travel firm Ctrip shows that domestic and international travel orders on its platform for the Lunar New Year holiday surged to a three-year peak in 2023, with four times more total travel orders this year than last year.
($1 = 6.7825 renminbi)