Restrictions relaxed, interprovincial travel reopens

A tour group of 10 people boarded a flight from Beijing Daxing International Airport to the city of Rizhao in Shandong province on July 21, the airport's first interprovincial group tour after China's capital resumed interprovincial tourism a day earlier.

With Beijing's downgrading of its public health emergency alert from the second to the third level as of midnight on July 20, the Beijing Bureau of Culture and Tourism announced on the same day that under the premise of sound COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, the city's travel agencies and online tourism enterprises can resume operation of interprovincial group tours.

The relaxed restrictions on travel will provide a much-needed boost to the tourism market. According to statistics from Chinese travel service providers Ctrip, Tuniu and Tongcheng, on the day restrictions were downgraded, online searches for tourism products increased by 200 percent compared with the same day a month earlier.

Tongcheng's data revealed searches for outbound flights from Beijing surged on July 20, up 460 percent from a day earlier, with sought-after destinations including Sanya, Hainan province; Lijiang, Yunnan province; Guiyang, Guizhou province; Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region; and Zhangjiajie, Hunan province.

The return of Beijing's interprovincial travel comes in sync with the arrival of the summer vacation, which is expected to generate direct and indirect tourism revenue of hundreds of billions yuan, some experts say.

"Thanks to the lifting of the ban on interprovincial group travel, the downshifting of Beijing's (public health) emergency response, tourism is seeing a rapid rebound," said Cheng Chaogong, a chief researcher with the Tongcheng's research institute, a market research arm of the online travel agency.

Safety remains a priority, and to guarantee smooth travel, tourists from Beijing need to consult the epidemic prevention policies of their destinations before setting off, Cheng added.

In addition, the relaxed restrictions in Beijing have aroused enthusiasm of non-local residents to visit the city.

The search volume for train tickets from Shanghai; Hangzhou, Zhejiang province; Chengdu, Sichuan province; Qingdao, Shandong province and Nanjing, Jiangsu province to Beijing soared by 300 percent on July 20, compared with the previous day, according to statistics from Tongcheng.

Searches for notable scenic spots in the capital surged correspondingly, with the Forbidden City seeing a 500 percent increase in ticket sales over the day before.

Gou Zhipeng, chairman of online travel service provider Qunar, said Beijing has always been a popular origin and destination for interprovincial group tours, and with the resumption of its cross-provincial travel, the pent-up demand for more than four months will be further released.

To meet the growing tourism demand, the Beijing Bureau of Culture and Tourism raised the allowed capacity of the city's tourist attractions from no more than 30 percent of the maximum capacity to up to 50 percent, remaining under the premise of making advance bookings and staggered visits.

There have been a lot of tourists since mid-July, said a staff member with the visitor service center at Beijing's Summer Palace. "At present all A-level scenic spots are required to implement online booking and limit the visitor flow.

"Even if the epidemic is over, visitors have to make an appointment before entering a scenic spot."