CHINA DAILY | HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, September 15, 2020 | 17 LIFE Holiday hullabaloo A record number of travelers are set to travel within the country during the upcoming National Day and Mid­Autumn Festival vacation period, Yang Feiyue reports. he number of Chinese travelers opting for trips lasting five days or more is Ten most-searched likely to reach a record destinations Thigh during this year’s National Day holiday, the country’s largest online (By early September) travel agency, Trip.com Group, pre­ dicts. • Sanya, Hainan province The first day of the weeklong holi­ • Lijiang, Yunnan province day will overlap with the Mid­Au­ • Kunming, Yunnan province tumn Festival, which also falls on • Lanzhou, Gansu province Oct 1 this year, meaning the public • Xiamen, Fujian province holiday will last eight days. • Zhangjiajie, Hunan province People who take six days off after • Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan province or before can enjoy 16 days off, • Lhasa, Tibet autonomous region which is great news for long­dis­ • Guiyang, Guizhou province tance domestic travel, experts say. • Chengdu, Sichuan province All outdoor tourist attractions in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur SOURCE: TRIP.COM GROUP autonomous region reopened in September, when the region also allowed the resumption of inter­ especially since the pandemic con­ provincial travel, the Xinjiang tinues to stunt outbound travel, department of culture and tourism Peng says. reports. Hainan’s Sanya tops the list of Travel within the mainland has Trip.com’s bookings. returned to normal with pandemic The province’s Haikou Meilan controls, says Peng Liang, a International Airport will add or researcher with Trip.com Group’s resume more than 1,500 flights to big data lab. And the recovery has meet the surge during the October also boosted domestic travelers’ holidays. confidence. About 1,350 flights are expected “Smooth tourism­market opera­ to be added to connect Haikou with tion over the past few weeks will major tourist cities, including help build momentum for the travel Shanghai, Guangdong province’s boom during the long National Day Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and holiday,” Peng says. Hubei province’s Wuhan. Mean­ The repressed desire to travel has while, about 180 flights are sched­ been simmering for months. uled to resume, the airport says. “Bookings for the holiday reached Chongqing, Shaanxi province’s 65 percent by early September,” says capital, Xi’an, Yunnan province’s Wang Zuoquan, an official with Bei­ capital, Kunming, and Zhejiang jing’s Wtown resort. province’s capital, Hangzhou, are The resort has seen daily visitor expected to be favorites of tourists numbers exceed 10,000 since planning trips lasting three to five August, and hotel­room bookings days, Peng predicts. have often exceeded the same peri­ Northwestern destinations also od of last year, Wang says. stand out among searches. “Family travelers have significant­ The early September, searches for ly increased. Individual spending is travel products in Northwest China rising. And guests are staying surged by 475 percent month­on­ longer,” Wang says. month, Trip.com reports. Wtown has kept up sanitation, The Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur and offers online payments and autonomous regions, and Qinghai audio guides. and Gansu provinces topped the Wang expects guest numbers to search list and were especially peak during the October holiday. favored by tourists from Shanghai “They can enjoy the stunning and Guangdong. autumn views of colorful leaves and Deserts, camel rides, danxia land­ enjoy hot springs,” Wang says. forms and historical sites along the Last year, domestic destinations Silk Road are among the biggest received 782 million visits during draws for northwestern China, the the seven­day National Day holiday agency says. and raked in nearly 650 billion yuan Most travelers are looking at five­ ($95 billion) in tourism income. day interprovincial trips in the Tourism players are counting on region. the holiday to make up for the losses Groups of friends and families are caused by the pandemic and have major forces behind bookings for developed favorable policies to the holiday, as college students boost consumption. account for a diminishing propor­ Xinjiang’s Kashgar is offering free tion. access to all of its A­level scenic It’s yet to be announced whether spots, discounts for its star­rated they can leave their campuses to hotels and incentives for travelers travel, which will significantly affect who drive themselves, which will tourism during the holiday, Peng remain in effect until year­end. Clockwise from top: Visitors take a sightseeing train ride to explore the charm of Chaka Salt Lake, known as the “Mirror of the Sky”, in says. Central China’s Hubei province Ulan county, Haixi Mongol and Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Qinghai province. An aerial view of Shambhala in Gansu province’s Chen Mengyun plans to visit and East China’s Shandong prov­ Gannan Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Children play at the seaside on Hainan Island. A Tibetan Buddhist temple in Shambhala. A Tibet with friends. ince have also opened A­level attrac­ mountainous village in Chongqing’s Wulong district. Tourists pose for pictures at Chaka Salk Lake. Visitors tour the Nanshan scenic “We’ll fly to Lhasa and then rent a tions to the public for free. area in Hainan’s Sanya. PHOTOS BY XINHUA AND PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY car to travel around the region,” the Jiangsu province’s Suzhou recent­ Beijing resident says. ly rolled out 1 yuan tickets for any It’ll be her first trip outside of Bei­ one of its 14 celebrated gardens. percent over the previous week, destinations, such as Harbin in The pandemic has enhanced peo­ accounted for about 30 percent of jing since the outbreak. Alibaba Group’s online travel according to Fliggy, and air ticket Northeast China’s Heilongjiang ple’s safety awareness, and private tourists during last year’s National Chen says their rough itinerary arm, Fliggy, has initiated a 10 mil­ sales increased by 160 percent. province and Changsha in Central tours can better satisfy their needs Day holiday. The figure is expected has been settled, and they’ll make it lion yuan subsidy program to boost Although hotel costs have China’s Hunan province, for the first by decreasing unnecessary contact to increase this year out of precau­ a point to visit temples and histori­ the recovery. increased by 65 percent on average day of the National Day holiday and better ensuring hygiene, says Yu tion, according to Trip.com. cal sites. The program covers tens of thou­ during the holiday compared with were quickly snapped up after sales Dan, who runs private­tour opera­ Hainan, Yunnan, Sichuan and “The idea of going out with my sands of hotels across the country, as the summer vacation period in resumed in early September, tions at Trip.com. Shaanxi provinces are expected to friends is exciting,” she says. well as transportation, scenic spots August, they’re still 30 percent according to the country’s railway Flexible arrangements and better be hot spots during the holiday, “We’ve been looking forward to and theme parks. lower than during last year’s ticket­booking website, 12306.cn. on­tour services also enhance the Peng says. traveling together for a long time.” During the second week of Sep­ National Day holiday, according to More tourists are expected to popularity of small private tours, Yu Hainan is likely to remain popu­ tember, hotel bookings for the Fliggy. choose small tours or drive them­ says. lar thanks to its island and leisure Contact the writer at National Day holiday surged by 190 High­speed train tickets to many selves. Travelers who drive themselves elements, and duty­free shopping, [email protected] China offers hope to the global tourism industry

China’s rapid containment of duce more tourism packages fea­ will drop by $910 billion to $1.2 tril­ Some Chinese have resumed trav­ COVID­19 and subsequent econom­ turing the pianist’s belongings to lion. eling and retail spending in recent ic recovery offer hope to the global attract Chinese visitors, she says. As one in 10 people work in the months. While the domestic tour­ tourism industry that has been hit China is the world’s largest out­ tourism sector worldwide, the ism market is steadily recovering, hard by the pandemic. bound­travel source market, sky­ unprecedented crisis threatens the outbound travel may not be too far “China has become one of the rocketing from 4.5 million well­being of millions. Over 100 behind after the global pandemic fastest­growing source markets for outbound travelers in 2000 to 170 million tourism jobs may be lost, subsides and borders reopen, Li Poland. We hope that more Chinese million in 2019. while unemployment in countries says. can visit our country once the pan­ Many countries have introduced heavily reliant on tourism may China Tourism Academy director demic is contained,” Zuzanna Gut­ various measures and incentives, spike by more than 20 percent, UN Dai Bin says the pandemic will lead A visitor views a picture featuring world­famous tourist sites at the kowska, acting director of the Polish including long­term visas and Secretary­General Antonio Guter­ to some changes in people’s travel recent China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing. XINHUA National Tourist Office in Beijing, adopting Alipay and WeChat Pay, to res said in August. habits, which travel agencies should said on the sidelines of the recent entice Chinese. “We will share with the world Chi­ pay attention to. China International Fair for Trade The United Nations recently pro­ na’s anti­epidemic measures and its In a post­pandemic world, inde­ Some experts also point out that, as big data, to upgrade the industry in Services. jected international tourist num­ experience in tourism­sector recov­ pendent travel and smaller group in addition to strengthening global and promote high­quality develop­ Since Frederic Chopin is a house­ bers may decline by between 58 ery,” says World Tourism Cities Fed­ tours will be popular since cautious cooperation and stimulating ment. hold name in China, the Polish percent and 78 percent year­on­ eration executive deputy secretary­ people may hesitate to take large demand for travel, countries should tourism industry plans to intro­ year in 2020, while tourism revenue general Li Baochun. group tours or cruises, Dai says. also use modern technologies, such XINHUA