China's tourism industry saw a steady recovery during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival, with travel rebounding to more than 50 percent of last year's level, according to data by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism. 

Tourism recovering steadily in central China's Hubei

Central China's Hubei Province, which was once the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, saw a big rebound in tourism during the weekend holiday, receiving more than 6.78 million tourists, according to local authorities.

Tourism revenue generated during the three-day holiday that ended Saturday totaled 2.69 billion yuan (about 380 million U.S. dollars), according to the Hubei provincial bureau of culture and tourism.

More than 620 travel agencies, 320 star-rated hotels, 101 cultural centers, 102 libraries, and 114 museums in the province had resumed services.

More figures are indicating that tourism is steadily rebounding in the once hard-hit province as the epidemic has eased.

The capital's tourism industry has been put on standstill 

Many travel plans to or from Beijing have been postponed after a new cluster of coronavirus infections emerged at a wholesale market in the capital. Local authorities have stepped up measures to halt transmission of the virus, including restricting out-of-town travel.

Trans-provincial transportation routes will be strictly controlled, with taxis and online car-hailing services prohibited to leave Beijing. Inter-provincial long-distance passenger transport lines and chartered cars are suspended.

According to the Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks, Beijing's 11 parks and the Museum of Chinese Gardens and Landscape Architecture have limited visitor numbers to no more than 30 percent of total capacity, and their indoor exhibition halls have been temporarily closed.

All of these measurements led to Beijing falling out of the top 10 cities of tourist reception scale during the Dragon Boat Festival. 

The shift in the behavior of tourists after the pandemic

There has also been a shift in the behavior of Chinese tourists, who now opt to make reservations before making trips amid epidemic prevention efforts. Also, short-distance and high-end trips gained in popularity among Chinese tourists during the three-day holidays.

To prevent crowding, tourists were required to book tickets online, and the number of visitors was kept below 30 percent of the maximum capacity of each scenic area in most of the scenic spots.

According to the data of China Tourism Academy, about 20 percent of tourists are shifting their travel plans from overseas travel to domestic travel, more than 30 percent of them are shifting from a long-distance trip to short-term travel and more than 50 percent are intending to reduce their travel budget.

Trip.com Group, one of China's leading tourism service providers partnered with Google to launch a joint Travel Trends Report, finding that interest in short-haul travel is quickly developing and that, in addition to safety, flexibility was the foremost consideration in planning future travel.

With pandemic control improving and travel beginning to show signs of recovery in more couriers and regions, the industry will revitalize travel with a range of new safety standards, flexibility guarantees, and promotions.