National Day tourism shows decline, short-distance tours up

Short-distance tours remained the most popular choice for travelers during the recently concluded National Day holiday due to concerns over COVID-19 control and prevention policies.

The seven-day holiday, from Oct 1 to Friday, saw 422 million trips made to domestic destinations, a decrease of 18.2 percent year-on-year. The number was roughly 61 percent of that of 2019, according to figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released on Friday evening.

The domestic tourism market saw revenue of over 287.2 billion yuan ($40.3 billion) over the holidays, a year-on-year decrease of 26.2 percent. The ministry said the revenue was about 44 percent of that of 2019.

Short-distance tours to destinations within or close to people's homes or places of work were favored by travelers who were concerned about epidemic control policies, the ministry said, adding the proportion of travelers choosing to take cross-provincial and cross-city trips fell 14.4 and 9.5 percentage points from the previous year.