China Sees Post-COVID Travel Frenzy

Massive crowds of tourists returned to the Great Wall of China Labor Day holiday (Flickr, 2017).

China’s five-day Labor Day holiday witnessed about 230 million people traveling domestically, reported China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. For past months and previous holidays, COVID-19 restrictions and regulations prevented extensive traveling, as millions were dissuaded from visiting families or traveling to other cities. The Labor Day holiday this year was China’s first long break in largely COVID-19-free conditions.

Labor Day has become a public holiday since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949. Chinese people first celebrated International Workers' Day in 1920, when Communist Party co-founders Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao held May 1 assemblies with students and labor unions in Shanghai and Beijing. Now, the holiday is a timely opportunity to enjoy the good weather of spring and early summer.

This year, a record-breaking wave of Chinese tourists have hit the road during the holiday, giving China's economy a powerful short-term boost. Domestic tourism revenue increased by 138 percent to 113 billion yuan ($17.49 billion) on a year-on-year basis, restoring to 77 percent on a comparable basis to the same period before the pandemic, reports China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. China Eastern Airlines has planned to operate a combined total of 16,000 flights over the five-day holiday; Hainan Airlines reported a 22 percent increase in flights to and from the southern resort island of Hailan. An online ticket platform reported more than 43.9 million people going to movie theaters over the five days. The holiday period also allows industries hit most heavily by the pandemic to partially recover. 

Data about holiday traveling also revealed several recent trends of the Chinese society: families of four people have become the most prominent consumers of family-related activities, implying a gradual end to the era of the one-child policy. Generation Z (those born after 2000) has become the age group with the largest year-on-year increase, indicating a new force of consumption to be valued.

Getting the pandemic under control has allowed the government to finally permit nationwide traveling. Based on the WHO statistics, the weekly increase in COVID-19 cases has not exceeded a hundred for three months since late February. The past months have also seen intensive local campaigns to get all residents vaccinated; almost 290 million Chinese citizens have received COVID vaccines, further boosting travel confidence.

The high density of people at all tourist sites and transportation vehicles made the ubiquitous signs about social distancing a mere formality. There has not been any major report of large-scale outbreaks of cases from the holiday travels from the state media. The bustling scenes in China seemed to be a statement to the rest of the world about China’s recovery from the pandemic, posing a stark contrast to many countries still deeply struck by the deadly virus.