During the three-day Qingming Festival holiday on April 3-5, China’s tourism sector almost returned to pre-Covid levels. Chinese tourists made 102 million trips, recovering to 94.5% of the pre-Covid-19 level. Data released by China Railway also showed that 49.91 million passenger trips were made during this year’s Qingming Festival, recovering to 92.4% of the corresponding level in 2019. The figures shed light on the rapid recovery of the tourism market in the post-epidemic era and showed that in terms of trip numbers, the domestic travel market has almost entirely returned to normal. 

These trends, along with hot bookings for the May Day holiday, have led some industry players and experts to predict that China’s tourism market will surpass the 2019 level during this year’s May Day holiday. Xu Xiaolei, marketing manager at China’s CYTS Tours Holding Co, said that on the company’s platform, the number of bookings for this year’s May Day holiday, such as for hotels and tourism sites, were already about 10% higher than in 2019. However, tourism income could remain below the pre-coronavirus level, with a recovery of about 60% to 70% from the 2019 level expected, as consumer spending remains relatively sluggish, experts noted. During this year’s Qingming Festival, China’s tourism income reached CNY27.17 billion, representing only about 56.7% of the pre-Covid-19 level. Zhang Lingyun, Director of the Tourism Development Academy at Beijing Union University, said that since incomes haven’t risen much, and inflation has been relatively high recently, it’s unlikely that most people will spend more on travel. “Certain places, like Hainan province, might see tourism income rebound to pre-Covid-19 levels, but for a general rebound is too early,” he said.

However, analysts expect consumption to play a bigger role in driving China’s GDP growth, and it could even push the economy to a growth rate of more than 8% in the second quarter. The IMF ratcheted up China’s 2021 GDP growth projection to 8.4% in the latest issue of its World Economic Outlook, up 0.3 percentage points from its January forecast. The IMF expects growth to slow to 5.6% next year, a projection unchanged from January. Despite the strong showing, it also warned geopolitical tensions between China and the U.S. could weigh on recovery.

Wuhan, the city hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, was ranked among the top 10 domestic tourist destinations. One year ago, on April 8, the city ended a 76-day lockdown. Tourists viewed cherry blossoms at Wuhan University and around Donghu Lake, visited the landmark Yellow Crane Tower, and tasted local snacks and hot dry noodles at shopping streets. Wuhan was also among the top 10 cities whose residents were most enthusiastic to travel, according to travel platform Lümama. The Yellow Crane Tower and Wuhan Ocean Park were among the top 10 scenic spots in Central China during the Qingming festival. Hubei received 11.7 million tourists during the holiday, about 60% of the total number in 2019. Asking Wuhan people which sector in the city has witnessed the most changes one year after the lockdown was lifted on April 8, 2020, many pointed to snack stalls. A seafood restaurant owner surnamed Zhou whose restaurant was under renovation in Jiqing street, a popular nighttime food street with snack bars, night clubs and barbecue restaurants, told the Global Times that his business was now even better than in the days before the epidemic, so much so that he bought a neighboring store to expand his business,  the Global Times reports.  

According to a report by the China Tourism Academy, 4.1 billion domestic tourist trips are expected to be made in China in 2021, up 42% from 2020. Domestic tourism revenue is expected to surge 48% to CNY3.3 trillion. Although China’s domestic tourism is on an orderly recovery, a full recovery of spending will still take more time due to the high share of short-distance trips, low prices of tourism products and large-scale free admission and discounts, the Shanghai Daily adds.