China's enthusiasm and travel bookings skyrocket for Labor Day holiday
People's Daily Online
1588567182000

Under the influence of Beijing and other media outlets’ recent release of the news on minimizing the public health emergency response, Chinese people's enthusiasm for traveling has been greatly boosted. The booking volume of air tickets and hotels soared in a short time, along with the prices of air tickets.

It is estimated that more than 90 million trips will be made during this year's Labor Day holiday, making it the year's first real travel peak.

With Beijing as an example, following the news that the city would lower the public health emergency response from level one to level two effective April 30, the local people' enthusiasm increased.

According to Qunar, an online travel information provider, the number of searches for air tickets on the platform rose rapidly within half an hour after the news was released, with bookings for flights departing from Beijing jumping 15-fold over the previous period and searches for other travel products such as holidays and hotels also rising three-fold.

92da5299d24e40b9a29cc44a1471fc08.jpg

(Photo: Agencies)

Within an hour of the announcement, the trading volume of air tickets in and out of Beijing increased by more than 500 percent compared with the same period of the previous day, and the volume of train tickets in and out of Beijing increased by 400 percent on Fliggy, a Chinese online travel platform run by Alibaba Group.

Hotels and accommodation also ushered in a small peak of booking. Two hours after the release of plans to lower emergency response levels, the number of residential search and bookings soared four times compared with the same time of the previous day, according to data from Tujia, a global lodging-service sharing and booking platform.

"Since the beginning of this year, the enthusiasm of tourists has been dampened by the epidemic, and many high-end tourists have turned to the domestic market due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in foreign countries. For the sake of safety and epidemic prevention, tourists will also enhance the quality of travel requirements. Under the influence of many factors, high-quality products are naturally very popular," said a travel expert from Ctrip, China's largest online travel agency.