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Image source,VCG / Getty Images
The Wuhan Yellow Crane Tower offers light shows and night tours of the Yellow Crane Tower during the National Holidays.
On the night of September 30, Zhou Wei left Wuhan City, Hubei Province by car with his girlfriend, and returned to his hometown in Jingzhou to spend the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day with his parents.
They were looking forward to this long vacation, which is more than a week. The Spring Festival, another major festival earlier this year, ended in a deserted fashion due to the new corona epidemic. For many Chinese like them, this “Eleventh” Golden Week is the first real holiday this year.
“I really want to relax this time,” Zhou Wei said.
In addition to returning home to visit relatives, they will also travel by car in Henan with their parents and join the hundreds of millions of China Golden Week tourism forces. This is a bit emotional for him as a native of Hubei.
Just a few months ago they experienced the menacing new corona virus, traveling earlier in the year was still something they couldn’t imagine, now they basically don’t take the epidemic into account when planning their travel itinerary.
“Basically now there are no cases in the country, and the epidemic is no longer a factor affecting travel for us,” he told the BBC China.
In this month of October, China may be the most active tourism market in the world. Today, the new corona virus continues to ravage the world. The global death toll has barely exceeded one million this week. Confirmed cases in most countries remain high and strong epidemic prevention measures, such as regional closures, have been adopted. Witness the recovery of the tourism market and the movement of hundreds of millions of people.
The China Tourism Research Institute, under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, predicts that during the “Eleventh” 8-day Golden Week, the number of domestic tourists in China will reach 550 million.
Image source,fake images
Tourists take photos in front of the giant flower basket on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
“There is no trace of the epidemic”
Before the outbreak of the epidemic, Zhou Wei and his girlfriend originally planned to travel to Hong Kong for their vacations, but due to the border blockade between the two places, they can only choose to visit attractions in China.
Before leaving, the group would go to a testing agency for nucleic acid testing. Other than this, the epidemic had little impact on their travel plans this time. Zhou Wei said that even the nucleic acid test is only to ensure that the trip is not delayed due to the epidemic, just to prepare for an emergency.
When crossing provinces or entering some scenic places, they only need to show the green code of their health code. They will also bring their own masks and hand sanitizers throughout the process, but Zhou Wei believes these anti-epidemic measures are “little things” in China at the moment. “If others can’t do it, we won’t care too much.”
Before this, the Chinese government announced that the epidemic had been well controlled. Although new chains of infection have appeared in Beijing, Dalian, Xinjiang, Yunnan and elsewhere, new cases were cleared up again before Golden Week and interprovincial travel on the mainland was fully restored.
In comparison, Zhou Wei and his group are already cautious. Han Zhang, 29, plans to hold a wedding in a small town in Anhui on October 6. Although the local government requires that the guests not celebrate more than 15 tables for reasons of epidemic prevention, she and her husband believe that the wedding will not bring any risk of epidemic.
According to her, no anti-epidemic supplies, such as hand sanitizers, will be prepared at the wedding.
“There is nothing left in the area. We went to see the place last week, and in the entire hotel there were only two of us wearing masks,” he said. “Now there is no trace of the epidemic.”
For her, the biggest annoyance caused by the epidemic is that many relatives and friends in Beijing have to leave the areas surrounding Beijing without special circumstances because they work in government agencies and for the sake of epidemic prevention. The wedding can seem a bit deserted.
“I’m just concerned about the fact that there will be very few people present at that time and the shooting effect will be bad,” he told BBC China.
Image source,CNS / Getty Images
Before Golden Week, the number of new cases in various parts of China was cleared again and interprovincial travel in the interior was fully restored (picture shows Lhasa, Tibet, a tourist uses a QR code to show his e-ticket in your mobile phone).
New changes under the epidemic
Although for Zhou Wei and Han Zhang, the epidemic has little effect on their Golden Week plan this year, in terms of overall market performance, China’s tourism market this year has been significantly affected by the epidemic, which It has led to the emergence of some new trends in the tourism industry.
According to data published by the tourist information and products platform “Mafengwo”, self-drive tours and personalized tours for small groups with a size of 1 to 6 people are the most popular topics in the tourism market of the “Eleventh” Week Dorada from China this year.
Mafengwo tourism big data shows that the search popularity of the “National Day Self-Drive Tour” increased 153% week-over-week, while the number of orders for personalized tours increased 24% compared to the same period of the year. past.
According to Sophie, a tourism industry in Shenzhen, told the BBC in Chinese that the impact of the epidemic on the tourism industry is still continuing, so this year the industry is not optimistic about the scale of the “Eleventh” Golden Week . From what she currently knows, Look, the number of tour group requests this Golden Week is even lower than expected.
“Mainly due to the impact of the epidemic, some people still have some concerns, so people are more inclined to drive alone or choose a higher quality, private, personalized small team,” he said.
Chinese officials have also made a number of preparations for this Golden Week tourist season. Before the arrival of Golden Week, the Chinese government adjusted the upper limit of tourist reception in various scenic spots from 50% to 75%. At the same time, scenic locations are required to implement an advance appointment system, and only after the appointment with the real name, the body temperature measurement and the health code scan can be entered.
